My Son, You Sleep In Clouds of Fire
by Angelfirenze
Summary: If I agreed that I was crazy, would you let me stay?" he almost asked, but just as soon as it started, the wild laughter was gone and suddenly his eyes were stinging and he couldn't see. Slight crossover with NCIS.
1. A Good Cleansing of Body, Mind

**My Son, You Sleep in Clouds of Fire**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Never were. The writers of each respective show own the characters. Even the main plot was a prompt I originally came across in **chasefest**, Round One, and became curious as to what would happen if I decided to try working on it though, apparently, this idea's been done before. Not this way, I don't think. The title comes from my favorite Interpol song, 'The Scale', from their newest album, **Our Love to Admire** and the chapter title comes from 'Choice Hops and Bottled Self-Esteem' from Bayside's newest album, **The Walking Wounded**. Appropos, no?

**Summary:** "If I agreed that I was crazy, would you let me stay?" he almost asked, but just as soon as it started, the wild laughter was gone and suddenly his eyes were stinging and he couldn't see.

**chasefest** **Prompt: #97** House is Chase's biological daddy, Chase has always known, House doesn't.

**Notes:** This may turn into a sort of ominous crack. Yes, I realize that's an oxymoron, but the point is that I'm warning you now in case crossovers of a sporadic nature irritate you for some reason. I write crossovers because of the sheer potential involved and I consider it a personal challenge to see how plausible I can make the plot and how the characters come together and interact. Hopefully, the plotting **pwcorgigirl** and I did beforehand when I first pitched that I wanted to try it (as well as the awesome beta'ing job she did for me after I started it--many, many thanks for that) will work to my advantage.

Part I: A Good Cleansing of Body, Mind, and Soul

_...The healing power of alcohol only works on scrapes and nicks and not on girls in seedy bars who drown themselves in it..._

The first time Robert Chase lay eyes on Gregory House, it wasn't the differences that came to mind, or even the similarities. Those came later, after a few days of _Shite, I've found him--what do I do now?_ doubts floating in and out of his subconscious as half-formed speculations and conjectures played Tag under his eyelids while sleep eluded him.

He would later wonder if insomnia may actually be genetic or if it was as obvious to House as it was to him that his hair still darkens every summer (even though he's been in the States for years now, but it appears that changing hemispheres doesn't matter any more than anything else in his life has), becoming nearly a match of the man who had hounded and led him through life without even a single inkling of any imprint he was leaving. Then again, Chase told himself bitterly as he packed up his things (he doesn't quite remember how a ping pong paddle came to reside in his locker, but now was not the time to puzzle that one out), why should House know? Years, years he watched on the edges, slinking along in the shadow of this man and never once did he get up the courage to do what he'd intended from the moment he first arrived here and reveal...what?

What makes a father? he'd asked himself, once and again. For nearly his entire childhood, he'd known he wasn't wanted, wasn't planned. Watching his mother, pale, wan, her sidelong gaze glazed in the half-light of the kitchen table as he tried (yet again) to find a place to hide her poison where industrious fingers (and careless _need_) wouldn't wrap themselves around bottlenecks that he shouldn't have known the names of (he's fairly confident he can name them all alphabetically) and she wouldn't sink again. _Just this once,_ he used to think with a sort of hope that couldn't seem to die no matter how many times reality spit in the face of it.

It wasn't until he knelt before her gravestone, searing tears sliding down the granite marker, that he finally accepted that he'd failed and, furthermore, she'd never wanted him to succeed. That would have meant he mattered more to her than this sickness did. He knew better. Knew the truth, shoved in his face as it was. Hell, there wasn't any reason why he shouldn't have figured it out earlier, being whose son he was. He knows that now and it's like a knife flaying his soul away layer by layer.

"You were born from a bottle," she'd told him once, her voice deep and slurred as it so often was, her blonde hair so pale that when light hit it he could pretend she was made of stars instead of flesh and blood. He'd been four then. He's surprised he remembers. Other details, clues, trickled out over the years--a snatch of jazz or piano on the radio, international news on the telly, even the sound of the ocean outside her bedroom window at night -- would trigger some half-remembered snippet.

"He had beautiful hands, your dad," she'd told him when he was seven. By then the man he'd _been_ calling 'Dad' no longer felt the need to actively live up to the title, and had decided his talents were better utilized elsewhere. Robert had been only slightly surprised by how small the void he thought Rowan Chase was supposed to fill actually was. He wondered where all his emotion had gone. Then Mum would find a bottle somewhere (he swore that he'd thrown them all out) and he'd remember. He was too tired for all that, exhausted from simply trying to save someone who (he couldn't admit this to himself, then, but one day he would) didn't want to be and didn't care if she wasn't.

"He was a real thin...rail-thin bastard," she murmured one day, a wistful look in her eye as she gazed off into space. She did that anyway, but that day it seemed to serve some unknown purpose. "And I do mean 'bastard', I'm not just sayin'...but he could play like...play that piano like he was born for it, love. You don't have his hands, Robbie...I...I don't know if you could..." she took a breath, actually looking at him for a change, and gave him a watery smile. "But you've got his sense of humor, I bet. It's in there, hidin' somewhere. Bring it out! I want to play, Robbie."

He hates being called 'Robbie'. It reminds him of stale sweat, the sharp tang of vomit staining half-missed toilet bowls and acrid breath, bloodshot eyes and the dead sleep of the drunk.

He scowled then and turned away, knowing she'd forget as soon as he'd left the room. She'd find _something else_ to occupy her time rather than reminiscing about whomever she was talking about. He didn't know whom he hated more in those moments; her for starting them or himself for that grudging need for more he would feel afterward.

Robert stood in the darkened doorway of House's office, listening to the low volume of the television he kept in there playing something too vague to make out. House's back was to Chase, the light blue of his shirt contrasting with the one underneath. His fingers drummed lightly on the desktop beside him, and Chase found himself glancing down at his own hands holding the box of crap from his locker.

_You don't have his hands, Robbie..._

He exhaled sharply and House's back straightened, his body turning in slow-motion like a roll of bread dough being shaped. Shoulders followed head followed hands followed (presumably) legs. They were obscured by the desk, after all, and sometimes Chase would look at them, see the faint dip in those jeans where he knew the remaining muscle had wasted and the skin had puckered, and a sharp, electric sort of pain would shoot through him and he'd have to look away before the fear and empathy would overwhelm him.

He remembers watching House lying in a puddle of blood to the left of this room, remembers the dull pains that stabbed his own neck and stomach all night as he'd sucked down cups of tepid coffee and wished this nightmare would end. He had been awake, after all, and dreams weren't supposed to follow you into waking life. But, then, he recalled thinking, when in hell had his waking life been anything resembling a dream? And why, much more importantly, should that have changed for any reason, say nothing of the complete lack of reasoning behind what amounted to a bad acid trip tacked on the wall and renamed a day.

It all came down to stones. And he didn't...

"I thought I fired you," House's quiet, slightly hoarse voice filtered out over the white noise of the television and Chase felt his breath hitch in his chest.

"You did." He frowned, a warm surge of anger pooling in his gut and he didn't know where it came from or why, but if it helped him get out what he'd spent years trying to say, then fuck it. "I just thought I should say goodbye...or is it 'hello'? We've never really had a chance to actually _meet_. An interview doesn't count as meeting. You'd decided before I ever came in that I wasn't leaving. The question..."

A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up out of him then and House was staring at him like he'd gone stark raving and, bloody hell, he probably has. He's entitled to it, he thought, a little madness now and then. He'd wondered before if the sort of madness House seemed to hold within got boring, since he complained of it so much. The thought brought the smile out from his mouth and up to his eyes and House was frowning at him now like he'd grown a second head with at least three extra pairs of eyes to match.

"If I agreed that I was crazy, would you let me stay?" he almost asked, but just as soon as it started, the wild laughter was gone and suddenly his eyes were stinging and he couldn't see.

"Holy shit," he heard House bite out, but he couldn't say anything in reply, and his body folded like a cheap lawn chair, the box of locker crap falling solidly to the carpeted floor. He followed a second later, his legs curling against his chest as he pressed his face into his knees and gripped them closer, the brightness behind his eyelids blotting everything out but the tears kept coming.

"I don't even _know_ you," he heard himself say. "She said...I had...h-had your humor and it was hiding. She wanted it to play. I'm so sick of playing."

"What the fucking hell are you talking about?" House asked from somewhere above his head, and Chase looked up at him through the curtain of fringe that had fallen over his eyes.

"Her name was Eileen," he whispered. "My mum. She was married, but that never stopped her. She liked men, liked a drink. She liked your piano playing. Said you sounded like you were born for it."

His voice was going hoarse, but he couldn't seem to stop now that it was coming out. House was pale, himself, now...his eyes (that blue that Mum said was her favorite color--of course, because if she couldn't let go of one addiction, why not add another?) widening and he was leaning back against the closer of the two desks, the corner digging into his back as he ran his hands down his face, but Chase couldn't seem to care. He was staring at House's hands that were so unlike his own, he was always told.

Chase raised his hands now and House was watching him, that wary look on his face like Chase was a scared animal that might bite. He was, he knew. And he knew House knew how that felt. What it was like when someone did that to you.

"You fired me, yeah, but I don't want to go," Chase said. "That'd make me as bad as them. You couldn't go...you didn't know...is this you taking your chance?"

House was taking a deep breath now, inching backward toward the cabinet where Chase knew he kept his personal crash cart. House flinched when his shoe caught on the carpet and the heel came off, jarring his leg. He snarled quietly in what Chase recognized was something Asiatic, but he couldn't place it. He didn't care.

"No drugs," he gasped and House froze, his face becoming incredulous.

"Are you--"

"Mental?" And Chase laughed again, the hiding humor back as a twisted smirk came to his face. "Probably, but I come by it honestly, don't I?"

"Chase." House's voice was sharp, tangible, and Robert held onto it like a raft. "You have to--"

"I don't have to do anything. You've fired me." The bitterness was a taste in his throat now and Robert swallowed convulsively. There was suddenly too much saliva in his mouth.

"You're going to be sick," House said quietly, matter-of-factly, the way he always spoke to patients. But Robert was not a patient and that was that.

"No drugs," Chase snarled, and House let out a sharp breath, his hands coming to rake through his hair.

"You're trying to tell me that I'm your father. You've known this for as long as you've worked for me, presumably the imbeciles who raised you knew it, too, considering the asshole who wrote you out of his will and didn't even..." House cut himself off, but Chase didn't know why.

Chase was nodding, but he wasn't quite sure. The room was becoming more than a little tilted.

"Chase, do you trust me?" House asked quietly, his entire body more still than Chase has ever seen it outside of that kaleidoscopic week in the ICU when he'd found himself in charge of House's ketamine treatment.

"No," he answered automatically, before wondering why he was lying like this.

"If you meant that, you'd be trying to get up right now," House reasoned and Chase heard himself groan, his stomach pitching wildly. "You need an anti-emetic if you don't want to add to the lovely palette of bodily fluids already adorning this office. I can tell you right now, yours are going to smell a lot worse and I doubt that weird night janitor who wears his pants backwards is going to appreciate having to come back in here for another stain he can't Resolve away."

"What?" Chase asked, completely unable to follow House's train of thought--which isn't altogether unusual but it happened a lot less than it ever did with Foreman or Cameron and what the hell does he care because they're leaving, too, and anyway, Cameron doesn't want a damned thing to do with him and fuck it being Tuesday because just like every other Tuesday and, for a long time now, not even Sundays matter anymore.

He's lost and he can't find the way out of what feels like a wind tunnel and his stomach has pitched again. He heard House tell him to trust him and he wanted to tell House to kiss his arse, but then there was a sharp prick on his arm, and then he didn't know anything for a long, long while.

_...Well, I made you and now I take you back, it's too late..._

...TBC...


	2. It's Hard to Believe Me

**My Son, You Sleep in Clouds of Fire**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** See part I for the more salient points, but add movies and books to the list behind television shows. The chapter title here comes from 'Pieces' by Sum 41. I should probably let people who've never before read my work know that I like to keep the majority of the lyrics I use a secret. It tends to turn into a guessing game, which is always fun.

**Summary:** This cancer of the soul was hereditary, he fully believed--why shouldn't he with the blatant evidence having been shoved in his face for innumerable decades, and if he could inoculate this...God, this innocent, bright soul that he has no idea how the hell could come from something so tainted and putrid as he who should have been recalled while there had still been a chance...

**chasefest** **Prompt: #97** House is Chase's biological daddy, Chase has always known, House doesn't.

**Notes:** In my own personal canon for Dr. Gregory House, his birthday is the 21 December date we were given in early season one. Also, Blythe is descended from a family of Reconstructionist Jewish converts. John House is a Vatican I Roman Catholic. I will expound upon those and other details about my designs for their backgrounds and families throughout the course of this story. I suppose the main theme of this series would be 'family', if I had to give it one.

Also, given my disclaimer for part one, I should add that when I said this may turn into what could be called 'ominous crack', it's because there are individual characters and/or groups of characters (i.e. the Day family from 'The Days') from other fandoms whom I think House, himself, would find common ground for whatever reason.

It's just because there are so many of them. I also have little nuances that I've explored in other Housefics that I may (read: probably will) mention here, like I've done before. There haven't been any complaints so far.

Part II: It's Hard to Believe Me, It Never Gets Easy

_I lie awake...I've gone to ground..._

House sat hunched in the chair by Chase's hospital bed, his mind a strange sort of blank. He'd had two options when he'd sedated Chase and their results boiled down to staying or walking away. So he'd done the only thing he could do and shut off the part of his brain that generally drove itself into a frenzy when something shocked him. He hated being surprised because that meant he'd missed something and missing this was...why he put it in a box marked 'LATER' and just moved on autopilot.

A twinge had shot up his leg as he'd stood to get to the phone and a scene, sharp and clear as if someone had videotaped the event played through his head. He'd ordered Chase admitted on a twenty-four hour observation hold--even a cursory glance told House that Chase was becoming dehydrated and the hysteria of his outburst had done nothing for the exhaustion that had always clung to Chase like a chill he couldn't shake.

But then, House thought, rubbing his leg and offering...his son's pale, unconscious visage a bitter smile, weren't those two of the things he knew best? He'd performed the full-body MRI and fMRI himself, going over every inch of...Chase's vascular system he could find. The stabbing pain in his leg had receded to something close to its usual dull ache, but he knew it wouldn't lessen further until he'd had a chance to get off his feet. But he couldn't let himself do that until he'd searched, scanning, magnifying every cell almost, looking for weak spots, hoping with a terrible fear he couldn't understand until it had passed, the stilted breath of relief falling out of him before he had a chance to realize it was there. No aneurysms, no other potential time bombs caused by complications from the initial event just waiting to go off like they had and always could in his own body. He'd laughed weakly and wondered why he wasn't more...anything. He was numb, he realized then, and exhausted beyond belief. It was bad enough that their most recent case now meant he had to write a goddamned thesis for the first time in years. Who the hell has an extra mitral valve? And who the hell...

House stopped that train of thought in its tracks, letting his head drop into his hands and sitting as still as he could for a moment before glancing at his watch. Four-thirty AM. He figured everyone, even Cuddy, had surely gone home by now. She'd be back into work before everyone else, probably badgering him about his team and why the hell he insisted on making her life so difficult.

House found himself tamping down on a chuckle, his eyes rising a fraction of an inch to take in...Robert's sleeping face again. His hair was darker, he realized, and it was odd because House usually noticed things like that. Seven years didn't make someone blind, he knew, just less likely to pick things up. Most people, anyway, and Gregory House was not most people. He leaned back in his chair, Robert's face immediately coming to mind as he usually saw it. He felt a hitch in his chest when his mind closed in on Robert's eyes. They were the same shade of hazel his mother's were.

God.

His parents. His mother had called him some weeks (or was it months -- he's always losing track of time now and he doesn't know why, though he has to admit he can't get up the effort to care) ago, the whole thing during Christmas smoothed over with uneven truths and her wishing him a belated happy birthday. She asked him if he'd gotten her package yet. He'd told her 'no' at the time, only to have it arrive the following morning. A special edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with illustrations hand-drawn by J.K. Rowling herself, and he'd held it in the plastic wrapping encasing it for nearly an hour, wondering what about him was worth trying to stay so close to. For years, he'd tried to keep her as far away as possible from him and his unrelenting misery and all the shit that passed for his life.

He doesn't want her to sacrifice anymore than she already has at his expense. He thinks of the stress she's had to have been under all these years, the things she's just had to sit back and take. He doesn't understand how she can do it. Looking at Chase, now, he's not sure he can find the strength to be anything close to what she has for him.

All his life, she's tried to protect him--from his father, from himself. Why she thought...this was a perfect example of why he had no idea what made him so important in all the world. Some unknown clue as to why he's survived ingesting half a military-issue bottle of aspirin when he was fifteen. Slicing open his wrists when he was thirty-nine. Three days after his forty-eighth birthday (not that he ever did anything for or about that particular day) he tried downing sixty oxycodone. Failed experiments, he thought, and sighed again.

He doesn't know how it feels anymore not to hurt _somehow_ and he doesn't remember a time when he did. He wasn't supposed to come back from any of it, but he has and he has yet to understand why.

There's always the possibility it's all been one ongoing experiment in how fucked up he can get and still retain some vestige of relative--because how could it be anything else?--sanity.

He was trying not to think, but it wasn't working. He breathed deeply, pressing his palms into his eyelids, letting the bursts of white come forth out of the darkness before reaching into his coat pocket and retrieving his cell phone.

**Gregory, you listen to me. Listen. I don't care what time it is--if it happens again, you call me. Is that understood, young man? Don't just 'yes, ma'am' me, Gregory--do it.**

Her Virginia accent always became more prominent when she was upset, and he knew perfectly well that she knew he wasn't lying, but wasn't saying everything. And he couldn't tell her everything. He doesn't want to destroy her like that. But while he'd like to think she wouldn't forgive him for not saying anything about this, he knew it was patently untrue. It was a lost cause and a moot point, and the fact that she and his father were in Japan right now didn't matter. While he doesn't know if his father would do any and everything for him, he was damned sure John House would move the world for his mother.

So he made the call and waited for the hurricane starting in his gut to materialize in the doorway. It was after five when Nurse Brenda Previn nudged him awake and he found his hand coming automatically to the now sore spot on his forehead where the cane made a nice dent. She was pressing scrubs into his hands and while he knew she didn't know what was going on, she wouldn't ask questions because they're both brats and questions just aren't necessary. Air Force, he'd realized within moments of meeting her just like she knew he was Marine Corps. He could spot them a mile away and knew there's an Army brat in the new arrivals of externs. The thought didn't make him smile, but it didn't make him sick either. It just was.

Brenda pulled the screen around the empty bed on Ch--Robert's other side and House stripped off his clothes and put on the fresh scrubs. He didn't realize quite how half-dead he was until his very bones protested even hitting the pillow. His leg felt like it was going to fall off any moment, but when Brenda pulled the screen back, the last thing he saw before the world faded away was Robert's sleeping face.

_Some days I get crazed...I don't know why it's so relevant, I'll take deep breaths and keep control, go on..._

He was a little surprised to see Cuddy and Wilson in the room when he woke up, but his leg reminded him that moving was a really stupid idea and he froze instantly, a gasp rushing forth before he could stop it. Wilson reached wordlessly forward and tipped two Vicodin into his hand, and House raised his head just enough to swallow them without getting the sensation of something caught in his throat.

He'd had enough crap stuck in his craw lately, with most of it completely incomprehensible and all of it to do with the...his kid in the next bed.

"I wasn't aware--" Cuddy started, but House raised his hand to forestall her.

"I don't want to talk--he can't. I'm only going to go through this once, so you'd both better be here when my parents get in from Okinawa or you'll just have to spend the rest of your lives wondering. I'm tired, I...well, who cares if I hurt, really? The point is I'm not going to talk. I'm going to sleep. And I'll remind you, Wilson, that I already have a Jewish mother and don't need a replacement. Goodbye."

He turned away from them, then, and...Robert. It didn't matter. He could see them perfectly in his head. The pain on his right started to diminish some indeterminable time later and he was able to take a deep breath for the first time in hours. Somehow, he managed to will himself back into sleep.

_...That's all and that's right..._

"I hate you," Robert's slurred voice intoned after his eyes opened and he figured out he was conscious enough to understand what was being said to him. He wondered where Wilson and Cuddy had gone. He breathed out a laugh, not sure exactly why this vicious oath amused him. Yes, he was.

"Well, now I know you're really my kid, you hate me. That's almost a fatherly pre-requisite. That's only a guess, of course. I don't actually have very many Houses to ask. The only people I talk to," House said as he slowly sat up.

He slid an arm across his face and felt the button of his undone cuff catch on his skin. The spot suddenly stung, and he figured he'll probably have a scratch there. He can add it to the mysterious ones on the backs of his hands and the side of his nose where the nose pad of his reading glasses snapped off. The hard plastic had fractured while he was cleaning them. That sudden break was like plenty of things he could name, and that train of thought inevitably led back to his own body, but what the hell was he going to do about it, really? He hasn't had the time or wanted to put in the effort of getting the nose pad replaced. Maybe, he thought, he would after the other one comes all the way unscrewed and falls out.

Whatever.

"The only people I talk to in my father's family are my uncle, who's actually my father's half brother, and one of my cousins. He's my father's sister's son. But I'm getting away from the point here: You hate me. Lots of people in lots of families hate each other. It gives them something to do in those moments when people bound only by accidental genetic links get together. So welcome to the club."

His eyes were on the ceiling now, unable (unwilling) to look over and see eyes full of sedative-glazed...the word 'rebuke' came to mind, though he was damned near positive that wasn't the one he was looking for.

"You didn't want the sedative because they make you feel drunk. It's a perfectly reasonable feeling, in your case, but it means the difference between a twenty-four hour observational hold on the second floor and one in the psych ward. But you're not drunk. That's the wrong word. You mean you feel stoned. Because that's what you are, but it's the beneficial kind of stoned. But never mind cutting hardtack with butter knives-- the point is that I'm your..." House paused for a second. "Whatever I am to you and you hate me."

He could feel...Robert watching him and turned back over onto his left side, facing the wall again. He was still so tired--always, really. What did it really matter if he slept? It never did him any good, even when he could catch it. Ephemeral patches of blackness in between blindingly vivid moments of surrealism. He breathed out, lifting his fingers into the air, picking out a guitar solo he could remember hearing but couldn't recall where or by what band.

It didn't matter, oddly enough. Right now, in this moment, all he could do was sink into his head, watching the colors the notes produced bloom and fade like swatches of paint. The music was inside him, infusing him, and he tried to think as loudly as he could because then he wouldn't have to remember when he'd said those words to his own father. Or why they were true. Or why, in particular, they weren't.

_...You don't have to be wound so tight...Smoking on the balcony..._

When he next awakened, his mother was holding his hand and it took a moment for the burning feeling to register but it did and he wriggled out of her grasp though he didn't turn away. She laid her forehead on his and her skin was cool, but not as cold as his. She'd been crying, he could see, and his stomach twisted in knots and he wanted to apologize. He wished he'd been able to give her the peace of mind that comes with not having to worry about him and whether he's happy anymore. But he'd never been happy that he can remember and he didn't see that changing any time soon. It was useless now to wish for it when his body was--and is--dead-set on betraying his mind and whatever he might have left of a soul. The only way to make it do what he wants anymore is just another outlet of chemical dependence. Even in death, he'd need help and before he could stop himself, he was curling in on himself, his eyes burning as he'd imagined Robert's did earlier-–and it faintly registered that his son's name didn't come with the hitch it has had recently--and he was trying to breathe, but he couldn't.

His mother whispered something to him, something and nothing, and he was just hearing the sound of her voice rolling over his ears. He knew that his father was there in the doorway and knew that John House probably hadn't the faintest idea what to do right then.

He's more than certain that his father came well-prepared with a speech about how much of a conniving liar Robert is and how much of a fool he is for believing any such obviously false bullshit, but something has stopped the tirade from pouring forth. For once, his father's not spewing out more empty platitudes about him being too smart for this shit and too old for that shit and not knowing how 'lucky' he is, without the helpful exhibitions of incontrovertible truth.

_Weird,_ he thought, just now. He felt his mother's _Gimel_ charm on the necklace she always wears lying cold on his skin and wondered if his father was wearing his shield of St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers. His cousin Evan wears one, too. He always has.

House doesn't know what's making him think of so many random faces out of the only side of his impenetrably fractured family he truly feels a large amount of any emotion for. His mother's family is one in more senses of the word than he can express. It's never actually occurred to him to try, but he probably should. It would give him something to cling to right now and the starting point, he knew, was the woman beside him who almost died trying to give him life. The debt he owes to her is so deep, so overdrawn, and he's been completely emotionally bankrupt from the moment he woke up in his uncle's guest bedroom (it belongs to Liberty Bell now, he knew, but back then Juno was only nine and still an only child) with an extremely sore stomach and throat and Bren wiping his face.

She'd nodded mutely, her eyes baleful and looking rather like the dogs she's so obsessed with, and she pretended to understand as he asked hoarsely over and over in Dutch and Japanese and every other language he even half-knew why he wasn't allowed to rest.

It's really the only thing he ever wanted.

Still wants.

But something in him didn't want Robert to know that. This cancer of the soul is hereditary. He fully believes that. Why shouldn't he, what with the blatant evidence having been shoved in his face for innumerable decades? And if he could inoculate this...God, this innocent, bright soul who he has no idea how the hell could come from something so tainted and putrid as he, who should have been recalled while there had still been a chance...

The thoughts kept coming, now that they'd started, and his mother's hand was reaching for Kleenex from the box on the bed tray at the foot of his bed before she wiped her own eyes. But she wouldn't look away from him and he wished she would. He wanted to move away, but that would mean looking back at the line of fire around the room. It's like watching, waiting for dynamite to detonate. The explosion is a chemical reaction and cannot be stopped once it's started. The catalyst was an anomaly at the moment, he knew, but it wasn't clear where to lay the blame. Once the debris settled and the aftermath could be clearly measured...perhaps then.

Then a whole other brick hits him in the head, larger and much more solid. He was placing blame where it didn't belong--on the shoulders of an unknowing, unassuming son. His breath hitched so violently and painfully in his throat that he could feel his mother jump slightly and something hot hit his face. He couldn't breathe, it hurt so much.

She was crying again, House knew now and wanted once more to die.

Constants in his life, in those of everyone around him. Pain, misery, tears, and anguish. Love.

Constants in his life, pain, being hated, and wanting to die.

_My insides all turned to ash, so slow and blew away as I collapsed, so cold..._

_...TBC..._


	3. But Not Our Last Days of Silence

**My Son, You Sleep in Clouds of Fire**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** See part I for the more salient points, but add movies and books to the list behind television shows. Title from 'You Could Be Happy' by Snow Patrol. Fitting song, I think.

**Summary:** He took a few more seconds and breathed before glancing at both Gregory and...Robert. Neither one had moved, though John imagined that the lines in Greg's face had gotten even deeper in the few hours he'd been here. Part of him wondered if his son was trying to race him toward death. A deeper part wondered if he was the one who shot the starting pistol. The deepest was certain he did.

**chasefest** **Prompt: #97** House is Chase's biological daddy, Chase has always known, House doesn't.

**Notes:** Um. Okay. Considering this story as a whole, I am not able to suspend my disbelief past a certain point, despite what the writers were trying to ask of myself and the rest of you last year. Therefore, I will change what seemed an egregious mishandling of medicine, and reality besides, regarding the opening episodes of Season Three. The sepia tones of the first scene in 'Meaning' may be a gigantic clue. Then again, they may not. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Part III: But Not Our Last Days of Silence, Screaming Blur...

_...Touch me, break me, think that I'm ripping apart at the seams...You don't see me at all..._

John sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands steepled underneath his chin. He watched...Robert lying prone in the position he'd apparently been laid in after being sedated. He didn't know what Greg had given him (something that started with a 'd', but hell if he could recall the rest), but the kid seemed more or less out for the count. The kid hadn't even moved in all the time John had been sitting here and some part of him was starting to get a little worried, even though he couldn't quite figure out why. He supposed it was because the last thing he needed was for Gregory's student (because he couldn't wrap his head around the idea of having had a grandson all this time and Greg not bothering to say anything) to die while John was alone in the room with him. He reached up and ran a hand over his newly reshaped crew cut and let out a breath.

He tried looking at it from a different angle, if there was even such a thing. The entire plane ride here, John had been tense, planning a well-deserved lecture to Greg and...Robert about gullibility and the utter lack of moral fortitude it took to pull a stunt like suddenly deciding to tell your superior...well, habit told John that the next word would be 'officer', but Greg had flat-out refused to have anything to do with any sort of active or inactive military service and it was obvious that this kid was as civilian as you could possibly get unless you weren't born yet. Anyway, it had all sounded like a ruse and John was going to set the two of them straight on the matter one way or another.

Then he'd walked in that doorway and seen Greg lying on the bed next to the kid's, a rumpled, unshaven mess like always but...different somehow. His entire body had been rigid, even in sleep. Even from the doorway, John had been able to see that something had been happening to Greg for more than a short while -- he was skinny as hell (not that that was new) -- but now he looked gaunt, exhausted to the bone, and every word John had so carefully plotted had left his head as though it had never been there.

Greg was wearing crisp, clean hospital scrubs, same as the kid, his right arm wrapped around his stomach in what John could only see at first as a defensive gesture. He hadn't known what the hell Greg felt he had to be afraid of, but then the familiar, deep rumbling sound of Greg's stomach and his subsequent soft groan answered his question. It hadn't been until Greg had actually been in medical school that he, himself, had found out his son had suffered from heartburn his entire life. They called it some damned thing now, some acronym or another, but Blythe said it was the reason Greg had thrown up all those bottles of formula when he'd been a baby. And something else with his throat meant he choked if he drank or ate too fast.

He hated thinking about Greg being sick. And if it wasn't one thing with him, it had always been another. He made his mother sick just thinking about it and John wondered why he didn't just find some way to fix it so they could...

He blew out a breath. Well, that was a pointless fucking thought, he decided, scowling down at the floor. He still remembers Blythe's words as they'd deposited their bags in their hotel room before coming to the hospital. Her making him promise to just keep his mouth shut until Greg or Robert or both of them wanted to explain what was going on.

He frowned and looked at Greg again, this time his eyes alighting on something across Greg's left arm that he hadn't noticed earlier: several deep but healed gouging wounds that looked as though they'd been clumsily stitched shut. Something told him that Greg had done it himself, somehow. Without meaning to, John's eyes traveled downward along Greg's arms, his memory of the original open cuts making the pale white scars stretching in straight vertical lines along Greg's wrists stand out. He knows he would have missed them, otherwise. Lisa had gotten the best hand surgeon in this hospital to sew Greg's arms shut, the marks barely visible even when Greg wore short sleeves. He remembers the surgeon being in shock, the careless words that followed about Greg obviously knowing what the hell he'd been doing and the little chance he had of fixing the damage. John remembers wanting to beat the shit out of the tactless bastard but Lisa's snarled words about not worrying about _chances_ and just doing his fucking _job_ had brought John to a standstill, then. The tone she'd used still chills his blood. He tries not to think about any of it but the thoughts won't leave him alone anymore and he wonders how much he can take.

Still, the surgeon had done the best he could--which, John had to admit, had been a damned good job--and all that remained on the surface were fine, pale lines delineating...God. He just couldn't.

But John knew they were there and every time he saw them, he was reminded of how he'd failed Greg. He didn't quite know when he realized that he'd harmed his son, but he knew it to be the reason why he's been reluctant to make any sort of attempt to contact Gregory. He tried to ignore it as often as he could, but here, now, faced with the evidence...it made his throat hurt and his eyes burn and he had to bend over and place his head between his knees, taking deep breaths until that horrible urge to cry had passed. He remembers when Greg was shot last year. He hadn't been able to make himself come to see his son (lying in yet another hospital bed, maybe not clinging to life this time) but the vomit in the toilet at home told him that he may as well have been there for the terror he felt. Blythe had said some things over the phone about another coma, some drug or other, and pain levels and some such thing, but he couldn't remember anything other than overwhelming fear. And...the guilt. He's still unused to how powerful the feeling is now. When he'd been younger, when Greg had been small and...God, he'd been able to push it to the back of his mind and convince himself that he was right and whatever crying the little whelp did was out of his own self-pity and he deserved what he got and should stop snivelling.

_Suck it up, and shut up,_ he remembers saying. _Before I_ really _give you somethin' to cry about._

He clenched his eyes shut again, his breath caught in his chest, and had to sit up. It came rushing out along with what sounded (to him, miserably) like a sob and he clenched his teeth to muffle the sound.

He took a few more seconds and breathed before glancing at both Gregory and...Robert. Neither one had moved, though John imagined that the lines in Greg's face had gotten even deeper in the few hours he'd been here. Part of him wondered if his son was trying to race him toward death. A deeper part wondered if he was the one who shot the starting pistol. The deepest was certain he did.

_...I'm bleeding and broken, though I've never spoken...Well, I need you now..._

Chase slowly opened his eyes with a grimace and stared blearily at the ceiling above the bed House had put him in. He wanted to be angry, still, wanted to...hit House or something, the way House had punched him in the face when he'd been detoxing the last time and Chase had tried to stop him doing what he'd known had been wrong. He wanted to hate House for giving him drugs when he said he didn't want any...but he couldn't.

A breath stopped in his throat and to his left he saw...his grandfather sitting on the opposite side of the room from the beds, his chair between this one and the one House lay curled on in yellow scrubs. He thought that if it weren't for the fact that he felt like he was filled with cement, he would get up and run away. But he couldn't even think very well, his thoughts sticking together like plastic wrap and the more he tried to prise them apart, the worse it got.

He didn't want to think, didn't want to see the accusations and disbelief he knew would be directed at him when he saw this man's eyes for the first time in years. He wanted to run his hands through his hair, because he didn't know what to do right now, but he was so tired he could barely move. His mouth felt glued shut and his eyes were burning again. He wanted more than anything to turn away, but he couldn't. All he could do was close his eyes and feel the itchy trails of tears on either side of his face, praying a vortex would open and drag him away. His prayers went unanswered. He didn't know whether to be surprised or not and it was then that he decided the best thing he could do was give in to the exhaustion and go back to sleep, but as he tried to turn away again he heard a sigh from across the room and tried to ignore it.

It seemed like only a second to him, but it had to be longer than it felt because suddenly House's father -- his grandfather -- was standing over him and an odd memory passed through Chase's head of something he'd said years ago when Chase had first been about to meet the man. _"He's incapable of slouching -- you stand at attention long enough, you forget how to stop."_

If he wasn't so tired now, he'd laugh because House was right. The man standing by his bed had painfully perfect posture.

"You're crying," House's father said to him and Chase would have flinched except he was too tired and House's father's voice was somehow softer than he expected.

"...Think I'm lyin'..." Chase managed to mumble, a wave of hurt rolling over him again and making him feel like he was drowning.

"I did, yeah," the older man admitted, running a hand over his extremely short hair and letting out a sigh. "But generally people who're crying like that with snot and shit dripping all down their face aren't lying. Plus, you're pale as a damned ghost and I figure Gregory must've had you put in here for some reason."

Chase blinked slowly, trying to remember... anything. The previous however long was one huge blank space in his brain and he realized he didn't even know what day it was.

"Drugged me," he muttered, licking his lips and closing his eyes again. "Told him...didn' wan'...drug...hate 'im."

"Don't say that," House's father said sharply, but not loudly. He was frowning, himself, now and watching Chase with an expression he couldn't figure out and couldn't be damned to care enough to try. "Greg was trying to help you."

"Doesn' ma'er," Chase mumbled, feeling his face crumple up against his will as more tears came. "Asked...what the effin' hell...talkin' 'bout...drugged me."

He was really crying now, he knew, and he couldn't stop.

"Jesus, kid," his grandfather muttered, his eyes widening and Chase wanted to hide under the covers but he couldn't move. "You panicked, Greg said..."

"Who...hell...cares?" Chase used all the strength he could muster to finally turn over and stare at the wall behind him. The old scar along the middle of his chest hurt and he would have wondered why if he could.

"Your _father_ fucking cares," House's father's voice snapped above him and Chase froze. "He told his momma about tests he ran on you. MRIs and f-something. Just to make sure you were all right and he hasn't left this room since he put you in that bed so you'll just can all this 'you hate him' bullshit, got it? He put you in here so you weren't gonna go out all upset and get in a goddamned car crash, so don't tell me he doesn't give a damn about you because if anyone should know it's not true, that's you, Mr. Bigshot Almost-a-Doctor. Greg knows you a hell of a lot better than I do and if he doesn't think you're lying, then you're not."

Chase stared at the wall beyond, a stunned silence ringing through him. He turned his head as much as he was able and looked at his grandfather's face. The older man seemed just as surprised at his outburst as Chase had been.

"He...looked...an'enysms?" Chase's dulled voice carried upward, confusion and realization seemingly at war on his face. "But...his feet...leg..."

Chase craned his neck painfully over to the left to see House curled in on himself in the other bed, his entire body the image of misery. He tried to inch forward some more but suddenly felt a sharp sting in the back of his hand where an IV line had been placed.

"Just lie down," his grandfather told him, placing large, calloused (just like House's, something in his drug-addled brain told him) palms on Chase's shoulders for the first time and returned him to his back. "Go back to sleep and rest. You both look like you've been trampled by a damned rhinoceros."

"Erumpment," Chase muttered, a slight smile coming to his face because he knew House would get the joke if he were awake. "Horn...blew us up..."

"What the hell are you talking about, kid?" John asked, but Chase was already asleep again.

_...I'm the wardship battle...I'm the remnants of precious metals..._

Chase rolled carefully onto his back, a wave of nausea falling over him like the crest that had felled him in House's office. He felt hands coming to roll him back onto his side before rubbing his back, which he now realized was very sore. His entire body, as a matter of fact, felt like someone had hit him with a rather heavy hammer. He felt something soft but firm encircling his wrists and pried his eyes open to look down. Restraints. Two-point.

_Oh, God._

His breath, he couldn't catch it. It was caught around the heart pounding in his chest. He could feel...warm, callused fingers running through his hair and the quiet, hoarse voice he knew so well asked, "How long have you been epileptic?"

Chase's eyes slid shut again and he tried to sit up, but House's hands were pushing him gently back onto the bed again. "Don't move. You almost hit your head. How long, Chase?"

"Mum...accident...car...run -- ran me..."

"Your idiot alcoholic mother fancied herself a drive and you tried to use your own body as a barricade." House took a deep breath and Chase watched him grip the guardrail with both hands and look briefly down at the floor before looking up again, his face an odd sort of blank as he continued, "The result being secondary epilepsy from blunt trauma, multiple fractures to your skull, both your arms broken, along with two ribs, and a subarachnoid bleed. The bleed healed itself, but your brain chemistry is forever altered. You developed chronic hydrocephalus and have a ventriculoatrial shunt in situ with the valve situated underneath your scalp --" House paused then, his head tilting slightly to the right. "Nice shunt bump, by the way. And what happened this morning and last night in my office, for that matter, according to New Jersey state law, means you can't drive for a year now. What are you on? In American medical terms if you can, acetaminophen is paracetamol in the U.K., after all."

"Le-levetiracetam. Used to be carbamazepine...'til I started here. Stopped..."

"So your neurologist in Australia had your new one here switch you from Tegretol to Keppra. How long was the intervening time period?"

"Week...week and...half...slept all...time."

"You were neurotoxic from the overhauling from one med to another. You probably had a bout of status epilepticus so your synapses could make up for lost time, but you were obviously treated for that. And you haven't had your meds in at least a day and a half."

House sighed, but didn't remove his hand from Chase's head, his fingers brushing very gently over what Chase knew to be the valve of his shunt, very careful not to press on the bubble-like protrusion. House scowled but the pressure from his fingers moving gently through Chase's hair didn't change. Then House's hand was gone (something in Chase whimpered at the loss of contact, but it seemed House didn't hear him) and he'd stepped back and looked down at his cane, twisting it back and forth as he continued to talk.

"I'm not going to waste time complaining about something that couldn't be helped. From now on, we know you're epileptic. You're not driving unless you feel like incurring the wrath of the New Jersey Police Department again and we both know how well that's gone in the past. I refuse to give Shitter --"

"Gregory," Chase heard as his grandmother's voice interrupted, shaky, but still stern. Chase remembered now that they've been here...they saw...

House closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. "You will be kept here on observation for at least another night -- we did another MRI and a CT while you were in your post-ictal sleep phase and you're scheduled for an EEG tomorrow morning. We don't have a choice, you know that. You were also given more Valium and Ativan on top of that when the initial spate didn't stop. Keppra's not the only thing you're on. You're on a polytherapy, but you take the Keppra first. What's the second, smaller dose?"

"Still carbam...azepine...Teg...XR. 100...before bed. Levet...iracet..."

House reached up and squeezed his shoulder. Chase suddenly realized he was still wearing scrubs like he'd been the last time Chase had been awake. "Stop talking. Just go back to sleep."

Chase tried his best to scowl, but his face wouldn't cooperate and remained frustratingly slack. "Tired...sleeping."

House sighed, "I know. I'll get Previn to bring you warm blankets for your muscles and joints. My mom and dad were convinced you were going to break an arm or dislocate a joint or something."

Chase looked at House's face, then, and something in him knew that his grandparents weren't the only ones worried. A strange sort of warmth floated over his chest and intensified as House leaned forward on the padded bedrail (he dimly thought that House made someone tape blankets around them but he was too tired to think for very much longer) and said in a soft, quiet voice, "You don't have to be scared. You won't be ignored."

And the hard set to House's face (and the marks on House's arms and the scar on his leg) let Chase know that House...his father knew what it was like to be ignored and would be damned before he let it happen to someone he cared about.

It was an odd thought, believing someone cared, but it made him warm and he's been cold for so long -- had to be. But now he didn't know what he'd do if he had to let this warmth go.

_You're pulling out your teeth and I'm the Novacaine you pump in your cheek...That's why I'm still around, you've got blood running down your chin...But you suffer peacefully (but you suffer peacefully)..._


	4. I Will Always Be Lame

**My Son, You Sleep in Clouds of Fire**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** See part I for the more salient points, but add movies and books to the list behind television shows. Chapter title from 'Father of Mine' by Everclear. That just came to me. nods

**Summary:** "I can figure things out on my own, Dad. I'm supposed to be smart, remember?"

**chasefest**, Round One **prompt #97:** _House is Chase's biological daddy, Chase has always known, House doesn't._

**Notes:** As usual with my work, this went where it wanted to and screw my damned plans...and thanks to **withwoman** for pointing out my glaring error about the difference between allergic reactions to blood and amniotic fluid.

Part IV: I Will Always Be Lame

_...Yeah, yeah, yeah...I'll pay when tomorrow...Tomorrow comes today..._

In his dreams now, House is always running. The color is odd, but he can feel his heart racing and the wind racing and sweat sliding over places he hasn't stretched in years. Something's playing on his iPod, maybe the Gorillaz track they threw on there just because they could -- or maybe it's the Raconteurs or something else Chase has played in the office in recent months. House has never been stingy with his stereo, but Chase was the only one who ever took advantage and played anything. He has to admit that the kid -- his son has fantastic tastes in guitarists, even if the lyrics don't always make logical sense. He remembers the 2006 'Bands You Need to Know' issue of Alternative Press Robert brought to work and used up almost an entire pad of House's Post-Its to mark off the bands he was interested in. He has to give Robert even more credit in picking bands with interesting as hell names, even though House didn't know one from the other when Chase played anything. He just remembers the music, like that guitar solo he focused on earlier this morning. That sort of sound is difficult to describe, let alone the way it makes you feel. And combining lyrics that, once he's deciphered them, actually _meant_ something other than someone wanting to fuck someone else and just how they're going to do it?

Seriously, House thinks, James Brown was the true master of writing sex set to band instruments. Marvin Gaye, after his stint with Tammy Terrell -- and before his soul-searching, why does the world suck so much for so many people days -- had women throwing their panties at him, begging him to let them 'Get it On'.

It's all parts of a whole, though. And what's there that catches him fast is just...too ephemeral and he wishes he could make the feeling last forever. Maybe then he wouldn't have the thoughts that plague him every day. He knows Cuddy, Wilson, his mother, they all would like him to get therapy of some sort. Once upon a time he might have been open to it, but that's long since passed and he has no wish to spend his waking hours rehashing what his nightly ones already have told him. He's had enough of that spontaneous tightening in his chest, the sweat that seeps into his palms when someone or something reminds him of...

It's hard enough facing down the fact that Stacy went to smack him somewhere once in the clinic for annoying her and before he could stop himself, he'd flinched away. She'd backed off then, something in her obviously realizing that she'd gone too far. She'd forgotten he wasn't comfortable being touched and that his reflexes were honed for a reason, even if...even if what?

He doesn't know, doesn't care to know anymore, and wishes he'd been awake enough to remember to bring the iPod with him. Humming is nice for the vibrations it creates in his chest, but he's not sure what to start with.

He doesn't remember when the majority of music became shallow and soulless, but he's glad that he seems to have missed the worst part of it. At least when Buddy Holly was singing 'Dearest', he was talking about actual love. It's difficult to remember sometimes that there are still actual 'artists' _writing and playing music_ and not just in the sense that they're signed to a label. He wonders if Robert has a record collection and how old he was when he discovered the salve that music can be to a bruised soul. House is positive that he has. He hopes Robert never forgets.

Right now, though, his focus is on Led Zepplin and he doesn't want to come down anytime soon. Not until Robert's fully conscious again and they can get this out before it becomes too fractured and details obscured by perspective become too polarized. Wilson better be back by then. If not...well, if not, then fuck it.

_This isn't who I am...From confidence to self-doubt in sixty seconds..._

_Blythe sat across from Lisa in the hospital cafeteria, barely resisting the urge to take hold of Lisa's hand. The poor dear was trying so hard not to start crying in the middle of this mass of people and Blythe had suggested they go back to her office and talk, but Lisa was so much like Greg -- of course, she had to refuse. She sighed inwardly and watched Lisa take a few moments to compose herself._

"I'm...I'm sorry...Wi -- " Lisa swallowed and took a quick gulp of water before glancing up from her salad. "James and I...we haven't been -- well, anything resembling friends for Greg this year, I..."

Lisa took a big breath and dragged her eyes upward to meet Blythe's and the older woman was mystified once more at how like Greg she was when she was unhappy about something. Always so quick to think it was their fault. The only one who didn't seem to have that compulsion was James. Odd, she thought, considering that from what Lisa described to her so far, most of what has happened traces back to James somehow. She's never been one to try and tell her son who he couldn't be friends with, but something in her wonders why Greg and Lisa are so close to someone who would treat them so badly. She doesn't like to think this sort of thing about James, but it would be a lie if she told herself she didn't notice how...insincere he was. Yes, there was a word for it. It seemed that James would readily do anything for Gregory or Lisa so long as he decided it was necessary. She wondered what James Wilson was like when she and John hadn't been visiting. How he managed to talk Lisa into lying to Gregory along with him or how...

Blythe shook her head a little and abandoned the thought. It wouldn't do any good to let herself get so angry, even if it was on Greg and Lisa's behalf. It wouldn't change what happened and it certainly couldn't force James to see how much he was hurting them. She'd learned that lesson the hard way, forty-eight years in the making.

"I almost want to ask Greg, Lisa, and Robert to take the next..." she blew a breath out of her lungs and looked away from John at Greg's still form curled on the bed again. She couldn't bear to see the look on his face so she'd sat to his back this time. "_Forever_ off, but that's not feasible. And it's not this job or this hospital that's getting to them -- " she sighed as John rubbed her shoulders with his still-bruised right hand and arm.

She flinched, then, in memory of seeing him the previous week after he came back from Washington, D.C., where he'd visited his younger brother for a while. She still doesn't know what they talked about, but she knows it had something to do with Gregory and that Jethro was the one who beat him up so badly. She doesn't want to think about the reasons why she knows John let him do it. "I just...I know he thinks he makes me cry, makes me sad..." she felt the tears rising again and took another breath to steady her voice. "I just wish I could get him to understand that I'm not angry at him -- this? Why would I..." she took another breath and closed her eyes, imagining the shame she'd heard in Greg's voice when he'd called hours earlier.

"What would be the point in being angry about something that happened twenty-nine years ago? I know, I know, most people..." Blythe reached up with her own right hand and gripped John's, leaning carefully into his side where she knew his chest was bruised, as well. She almost wonders if Jethro had broken any fingers hitting John so hard, but that leads back to the fact that she doesn't want to think about any of it.

She _knows_ that John honestly believes he deserves this pain and that he's passed that terrible obligation on to their son. It's the part where they're human and aren't above making mistakes that gets to her, because she knows they believe they shouldn't. She knows they're human and fine the way they are, flaws and all, but just wishes she could make them believe it, too.

"Most people wouldn't be very happy to find out their son has had one himself for all this time and never knew -- but that's just it. Greg never knew. Robert's mother obviously didn't say anything to him and Robert's stepfather...well, I can only assume from what Greg said about that man cutting Robert out of his will -- I just don't think that he knew that Greg didn't."

There was a strange stillness surrounding her husband at these words and it worries her, seeing him like this, just as she does when Greg isn't moving -- hasn't, really, in hours. The movements he does make are sluggish and faint. He's truly exhausted and the marks on his arms don't do anything to change the terror that flares through her every now and again. She contented herself at another of these horrible moments with the fact that now Greg might have someone other than Lisa to live for.

_...Who turned your way and saw something he was not looking for...Both a beginning and an end..._

House opened his eyes and sat up, his heart racing, his breath caught in his chest. His first thought was to run, but to where, he didn't know. Just so long as he got away. ...From what...? He realized he couldn't remember anything he'd just been dreaming, just that he couldn't breathe and needed to get somewhere safe. Before he'd realized what he was doing, he started to tumble backward over the side of the bed and heard...Dad snarling, "Holy shit," before those arms wrapped around him and held him fast.

"Let--let me go!" he burst out before he could think, thrashing, scratching at those arms, breaking open...bruises? But he couldn't breathe, couldn't get away. "Get -- get off!" he tried to get out, but there wasn't enough air in his lungs to get the words out. "Leave -- me -- get off!"

His eyes were burning and his arms were burning and he couldn't breathe, but then Mom was in front of him and Chase was sitting up on the other side in his own bed and Dad was placing him back in his bed and Dad sounded funny. Different or something. He bent all the way forward, ignoring the twinge it sent through his leg and buried his face in the covers. Soft hands pulled him up, pressing his face to a shoulder and he could feel warm wetness on his face again.

"Count, Greg. You know what to do," Mom's voice whispered as she rubbed his back. "Just count in your head as high as you can go and breathe once for every number. Don't do square roots or cubes or any multiples. Just the cardinal numbers. Can you do that for me?"

_1...2...3...4...5...5 -- no, 6...7...8...9...10..._

He slumped forward in his mother's arms and tried to keep counting, but he was still so tired. The monsters have never left him alone, even though he grew up and got bigger. Stronger. He used to be faster. Maybe he can use the cane as a weapon...shit. He never has the cane in his dreams because he's always whole there. _Not whole_, he was reminded as a sick swoop of fear falls over him again and he doesn't know where it came from or why it won't go away. _You're not whole if you don't have a soul..._

_...But I don't want to take your heart and I don't want a piece of history, no, I don't want to read your thoughts anymore...My God..._

John watched as Robert stared as he shifted Greg's body back onto his bed before he could fall on the floor. He was crying now, he knew, the sound piteous and hollow in his throat, and he wanted to stop but he couldn't. Not when he looked at his arms and hands and knew more bruises were under his shirt. His grandson was sitting up now, staring at him and Greg with wide hazel eyes -- Blythe's eyes -- and dark blond hair that hung in his face and John watched as Robert kept trying to reach up to swipe it away, but he couldn't get up the energy.

John wished he could go help the kid out, but he didn't want to risk touching them again. He's laid his hands on Greg enough for entire lifetimes and the look on his son's face as Greg stared at John over his mother's shoulder brought up the memory of his visit to the Naval Criminal Investigative Services bullpen where Leroy was holding court over his subordinates and the one after that where they went to a park nearby and Jonathan House and Leroy Gibbs sat on some picnic table in complete silence for over an hour before John's brother asked in that voice of his that always, always reminds him of Greg.

_"So you've finally figured out he's a fucking person, huh, shitwad?"_

John had taken a deep breath and nodded, reaching to snatch a sip of his little brother's everpresent coffee when a fist broadsided him upside his head. He'd fallen off the picnic table with a crash and Leroy had come to stand over him, sinking onto his knees and punching John as hard as he could in the stomach. John had curled around the blow, unable to stifle a moan.

_"I told you, you dickhead, I _told you_! Forty-eight fucking years and you're only just now figuring that shit out?"_ John had stared into Leroy's pale face, the younger man's grey hair and moustache brought into sharp relief.

_"I...I didn't...two years..."_ John managed to wheeze around the pain blossoming all over his body. _"I can't...look..."_

Leroy had sat back on his haunches, then, scowling bitterly at the remains of the coffee cup that he'd sent flying. _"You owe me coffee, you bastard. And you owe your son his fucking life back."_

_"I...know..."_ John had moaned, tears streaming down the sides of his face. _"I know..."_

He remembers Leroy reaching a hand out for him, the flinch that had passed over his face when John had gripped his hand. Leroy had set him back on his feet before smacking him upside the back of his head. _"Took you fucking long enough, asshole,"_ his baby brother had muttered, scowling down at the coffee stained grass around them.

Then they'd gone back to see Ducky Mallard and John had gotten stitches and bandages and all that crap. Ducky had asked him, quite innocently, if some golf club or other had been used in the 'attack' and John had shaken his head in the negative. Leroy hadn't smiled but called up to the bullpen to order Ziva or some damned body to buy him more coffee and some lunch. John had stared in surprise as Leroy thrust half his pastrami on rye at him. Leroy had gotten him a chartered flight home and swore that if John didn't go see his son soon, he'd be back to kick his ass some more. After that, they would see.

_I'm sorry for wasting, I'm sorry..._

House felt his eyes open of their own accord and wondered momentarily when he'd drifted off (never mind the 'how' -- that had become a nonissue long ago) before noticing that a slightly less monotone version of his father's voice was quote-unquote _humming_ 'Love Me Two Times' by The Doors. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that his father would even admit to hearing that song, let alone remembering it, but confusion won out over any reluctance House had to speak.

"You're butch-ering The Doors -- if you even know it's T-The Doors. I think I'd prefer a-a lecture."

His voice was rough and hoarse, catching in his throat and he coughed and closed his eyes at the (ever-present and hardly worth mentioning) pain and the exhaustion that wouldn't go away even now. House shifted slightly, grimacing before he could stop himself, and glanced over to see Chase lying flat on his back with his eyes trained without focus on the ceiling. He felt a sharp pang of what could only be remorse ricochet through him and then his father sighed.

"You really think I only came all this way just so I could yell at ya?" There was an unidentifiable quality to John House's voice now and Greg watched as his father rose slowly to his feet and came to stand by Greg's bed. Without meaning to, or even thinking about it, House shifted back toward the opposite guardrail of the bed and John House gasped and his hands flew away from the position they'd taken on the hard plastic underneath John's palms.

House watched in blank disbelief as his father took several deep breaths, his (bruised and bloodied, House realized with a shock) hand coming to cover his face and his feet taking several faltering steps backward away from the bed. House has never seen his father stumble before in his life. The sight filled him with a perverse sense of wonder and intrigue.

"You really...you really think..." John was mumbling and House could see his hands were shaking. "I never meant..."

"Never meant what?" House bit out before he could stop himself and John stopped cold, his hands falling sharply as his body automatically assumed the stance of attention that House, himself, is personally acquainted with in more ways then he cares to remember. "You meant every w-word," he coughed, falling bonelessly back to the bed and closing his eyes. "Every time you...you o-only ever meant to hurt me. You couldn't even..." House coughed, trying to clear his throat, but crap was getting stuck in it and he could feel his eyes burning _again_. "Lie. Couldn't even say my _effort_ was enough. But, hey, why should you? It wasn't. Simple as that. What the fuck else _should_ I think?"

Part of House wondered where his mother had gone, but everything else was taking advantage of the fact that for once in his fucking life, Gregory House was saying everything to his father that he hadn't been able, allowed to cry, to scream.

"I never meant shit to you," he whispered gutterally, a lance of pain shooting up his thigh. "I never meant more than dead bastards whose eyes I..." he bit his lip as another lick of flame shot up his leg, but wouldn't take his eyes off those of his father's. "It didn't matter that Jet's got blue eyes, too, or that his dad -- your stepfather, my _real_ Opa -- did, too. It didn't matter that I'm nothing..."

He paused and found the urge to laugh came easily, bitter and hot in his mouth. "Well, we already knew I was nothing. My older cousins pretty much cemented that during that _imitation pogrom_ when I was three. The things that they called me...I didn't know what they meant at the time. I found out soon enough. It's one thing when a bunch of strangers calls you a -- "

"Do _not_ say those words," his father snapped and House felt a shock of fear rip through him again. "They aren't my fuckin' family, God damn it. They..."

And House felt his breath leave him completely as his father looked up and House could see his face wet with tears that seeped into his collar and dripped down the front of his shirt. He's never seen his father cry before.

"You are _not_ those words, Gregory, and I don't ever want to hear you sayin' that about yourself again. Not ever!"

House stared, glancing over at Chase, who had managed to let his head fall over in such a way that he could see what was going on. His son was confused and fear was overcoming the sedation at last. Shame flooded him and he looked up at the ceiling, trying to breathe past the lump in his throat as hot tears cascaded down the sides of his face. Something in him registered that his father's voice had fallen back into the familiar, improper patterns he recalled again and again...the ones his father covered up with a strict and tightly-wound civility amongst strangers and non-military personnel.

"I just d-don't understand," he whispered, closing his eyes again as the tears continued to pour forth. "Why the hell do you care all of -- "

"Two years, Greg, there hasn't been one damned day that I don't hate myself for what I did to you..." his father's voice quietly interjected. "When we got to Paris, your momma said to me, 'You pick on him. Make fun of him. Make him feel bad all the time. You don't hit him anymore...for all the good it's done.' It was supposed to be our anniversary, but she barely spoke to me. She acted like she was enjoyin' the trip for most of it, but she cried when I guess she thought I couldn't hear her or see. I didn't...I didn't know what she was talkin' about at first. I've...blocked it all out for so long. I try and I try to think of what exactly happened...when you started...no."

John balled his fists and lowered himself back to his chair, pressing both against his knees. "When _I_ started lookin' for things you used to do that bothered me. I don't even remember _why_ they annoyed me. You were just a little kid. Little kids usually talk a lot, but I didn't want to hear that. It didn't even occur to me that three-year-olds don't usually use the words you did or know how to read an damned atlas or read what you used to call your 'big people books'. It didn't occur to me that my view of you and your momma's didn't line up at all. You laughed around her, she tickled you...I was...I wasn't ready to be a father, Greg, but that's no fuckin' excuse. If I wanted to say that, then I still wouldn't be ready. I'm still that same idiot twenty-year-old who blamed his own son because he had the nerve to be born. Like that was your fault. Who the hell would I be to go lecturin' you about Robert? You're a hell of a better father to him than I ever was to you and you didn't even know he was yours."

John let out a shuddering sigh. "I never found out what was wrong when your momma gave birth to ya. They didn't tell me anything...like that would have helped. I probably still would have -- "

"Preeclampsia and placenta abrupta," House whispered, wondering suddenly where his mother was again. "High-blood pressure in the latter stages of pregnancy. It can only be relieved by birth of the fetus. Placenta abrupta is when the placenta detaches before the baby is born. It causes massive hemmorhaging and can result in death of the mother and the fetus or any other number of complications."

His father was staring at him now and House could see bandages on his arms where he'd broken those bruises earlier. "They had to give her blood..."

House nodded, his hands coming to cover his face. He could feel tears drying under his palms, but was too...he just couldn't care. "She probably lost at least a liter. It's a good thing we have the same Rh factor or we'd both have died."

"What d'ya mean?" John asked, fear evident in his voice and House sighed heavily.

"If my amniotic fluid had entered Mom's bloodstream and we'd had different Rh -- the negative and positive...notations -- factors, she would have suffered a catastrophic allergic reaction and every clotting factor in her entire body would have been activated, turning her blood the consistency of Jell-O. And when those ran out, she would have begun to bleed from every orifice. This happens very rarely and less than ten percent of those patients it _does_ happen to survive. They're usually brain damaged, those that do."

House let his hands fall away from his face, forcing himself to look at his father even though the very thought filled him with terror.

"What happens to the babies?" his father whispered and House was so floored by the sheer lack of volume in his father's voice that it took him a moment to realize he'd been asked a medical question.

"Sometimes they die. Sometimes they survive. It depends on how fast we can get them out."

"Your momma didn't tell you any of that," his father said quietly. It wasn't a question.

"I can figure things out on my own, Dad. I'm supposed to be smart, remember?"

"You _are_ smart -- brilliant. Your momma's whole damned family is...and Ricky and Leroy, too." House watched his father frown and run his hand though his hair before sighing again. "It was never your fault that I didn't know what to do with you. Or that you didn't know what to do with me."

"What are you talking about?" House asked, though he had a faint feeling he knew where this was going, even if he couldn't be sure.

"Your momma told me that Lisa bought you a book back a little while after you came back to work. Said you'd had a patient -- a little boy, she said. Autistic."

"Adam. I'm not -- " House paused, sighing in frustration. "What does it matter? It's too late for that, even if I _was_, which -- who the hell cares because everyone knows I'd just use it as an excuse, like I use my -- "

"Gregory, _stop it_," John said heavily, his voice pleading and almost as soft as a whisper again. "Just because Wilson says -- or I say it, and I shouldn't -- doesn't mean you go lookin' for ways to...do whatever it is that bothers...well, your momma's never been bothered by you and you can best believe she knows you're the best thing that ever happened to us."

House snorted and John frowned again, leaning closer and catching House's eyes. House shivered as his father spoke firmly, "Listen. To. Me. I was _wrong_, damn it. I -- you're forty-eight years old and I don't even know you. I never even damned _tried_. That's my fault and...and Wilson's makin' the same fuckin' mistake that I did. He wants you to be someone you're not and tryin' to turn you into them. You _can't_ be whoever they are anymore than you could be my brother or my father and...and Wilson's gonna lose you. Just like I did. And it'll serve us both right."

House felt his mouth hanging slightly open and closed it, feeling his eyes widen instead. His father kept talking. "Your momma's been in your office, readin' the red book Lisa gave you. Somethin' about a 'curious incident'. She said Lisa gave it to you after you treated that little boy. Said you were the only one in the whole hospital who knew how to make 'im feel safe. It doesn't matter why you could do it...just that you could. And I...I never did that for you. Even now, you still think all I'm gonna do is hurt you and...God, Greg, I'm so sorry."

John leaned his head forward onto the guardrail and continued talking. House felt a strange sense of relief at the fact that he wasn't being watched anymore. "Lisa said you tried to fake cancer."

House felt his heart jump in his throat. "I..."

"Tell me you weren't just lyin' to them because they haven't been listenin' to you. Tell me you're not sick..." The pleading note was back in his father's voice again and House hesitated.

"I...I don't have cancer. That I know of." House clenched his eyes shut, his hand coming automatically to rub uselessly at the shards of glass he's sure are embedded somewhere in his thigh. "I wanted these super antidepressants...I...can't be happy anymore. I don't -- my brain won't...it can't utilize dopamine anymore -- that's that good feeling you get when there's a benevolent surprise you've found waiting for you. Not that I was happy before. Long family history of absolute shit, but...the Vicodin..."

John nodded as though he understood, "Lisa told your mother you've tried other stuff...none of it's worked...and the Vicodin's not anymore, either. And you weren't even supposed to stay on it this long, ever."

House nodded, unable to find the strength to say anything anymore. "It's usually only for short-term use. Post-op or a bone break -- sometimes it's used this way, like with terminal cancer patients and the body building a tolerance doesn't matter, but no one could think of anything else to do to me and I was too stoned to object. Like that mattered. And now? Well, the drugs don't work, they just make you worse..."

He knew his father didn't know what song he was quoting. But like Cuddy's belief in Wilson's machinations or whatever the hell they were, what did it matter?

_...All this talk of getting older...It's getting me down, my love...Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown, this time I'm coming down..._

...TBC...


	5. And Now I'm Cryin'

**My Son, You Sleep in Clouds of Fire**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** See part I for the more salient points, but add movies and books to the list behind television shows. Chapter title from 'Mad Season' by Matchbox Twenty.

**Summary:** The tears were still coming and John felt as though his chest were being cleaved open because he knew how it felt to watch your only child in mortal danger and being unable to articulate the sheer force of the emotions running through you. He found it hard enough; he figured Greg found it nearly impossible.

**chasefest**, Round One **prompt #97:** _House is Chase's biological daddy, Chase has always known, House doesn't._

**Notes:** Well, this was actually difficult to write. Especially the beginning.

Part V: And Now I'm Cryin', Isn't That What You Want?

_Breathe in right away...Nothin' seems to fill this place..._

It was definitely the most difficult thing he'd ever experienced in his life -- cardiac arrest and muscle death be damned, watching his son begin to seize every time he regained consciousness only to be drugged yet again made Gregory House so incredibly distraught that eventually he had to betray every silent promise he'd made not to leave and retreat to the locker rooms for a shower. He sat in the stall, tears stinging his eyes as they mixed with the shower spraying down on his face. He was trying his best not to sob out loud, but he couldn't manage to completely stifle them. He opened blurry eyes and stared at the tiles around him, wondering how the hell he was going to get through the next few days if every few seconds he felt like he was having a heart attack. He wondered how his mother had gotten through the last forty-eight years and couldn't see himself doing the same. He'd woken up in the middle of the night to see his parents' empty chairs and a note from his mother explaining that they'd gone back to their hotel to get some sleep. Wilson had still been nowhere to be found, but that wasn't what was troubling House at that moment. He blinked and tears had slid down his face, nausea pooling again in his gut as a deeply unpleasant and thoroughly confusing feeling flooded his entire body. Taking a deep breath, he'd looked at Chase, who had begun to awaken only a few seconds later. The seizure started in Chase's left-hand fingers and quickly spread to the rest of his body. House had scrambled as quickly as he could out of bed and administered yet another dose each of alprazolam and diazepam, watching Chase's body cease its frantic repetitive movements and feeling his own heart beating its way out of his chest before stomping over to the phone and calling whoever was on staff that early in Neurology.

Chang was still a resident but House would be there, he figured, if he did anything stupid. They performed the electoencephalogram and added electrocardiogram well ahead of schedule, House getting that horrible sensation all over again when he found himself shaking Chase awake for...to see if his theory was correct. It was. He didn't explain to Chang where he was going or give any thought to the echo of the younger man's voice ordering another round of sedatives after the results were recorded. House could see them superimposed over the insides of his eyelids (sharp, jagged lines of erratic electrical current directly associated with a sharp fall and rise in Chase's heart rate) as he bent over the toilet in the closest men's room, feeling his eyes and viscera burning in equal measure. The echocardiogram Chang ordered afterward (the results of which now sat in a deceptively placid stack) confirmed his 'hunch' and House wanted to be sick again. He stood instead, rushing as fast as his stupid leg would allow, and didn't stop until he'd reached the shower.

_...Day in, day out, my tear-stained face, pressed against the windowpane...As I search the sky desperately for rain..._

He now stomped around his office, snatching one of Chase's CDs out of the 'departmental' (and here he chuckled bitterly because his and Chase's were the only ones in it) case and sticking it into his stereo with a strange violence that he couldn't wrap his head around. Something he vaguely recognized, wondering yet not why he knew the lyrics, began playing and he turned it up as loudly as he dared so early in the morning. He flung his arms around, not caring as they came into contact with shelves or the corner of his desk, yearning, wishing he could do something other than sitting on his ass while his son's brain liquefied under its own power. He was reminded and laughed morbidly at the scene in that one X-Files episode where Mulder was 'experiencing so much activity in his temporal lobe that it is effectively destroying his brain'. His mother had snapped at the physician, stating archly that there was only so much bluntness a mother can take. He wondered how much bluntness his mother has been forced to endure on his behalf and before he realizes it, he's on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

His father was squatting over him, concern etched into those familiar features for the first time he could remember. His father went to touch him again, but instantly reconsidered and House was more grateful than he could express. He didn't say anything, simply pulling himself back into a sitting position and hearing the silence pressing in on him. Fucking Valiums. He'd forgotten about the vertigo and the random narcoleptic effects. He hasn't had any in months and now everything feels heavy and torpid. He couldn't speak if he wanted to.

"That Dr. Chang...he said they had to -- "

House frowned and grimaced, a growl in his throat as he managed to pull himself back to the wall behind him before getting up the effort to pull his legs up toward his chest. It felt like hours, but...

John House sighed heavily and ran a hand over his crew cut, watching his son stare at the windows leading to the balcony. Greg was starting to rock back and forth, his grip on his legs tightening with each passing second. He was making a faint rumbling noise that he didn't seem aware of. Fear poured off of him so thickly John was convinced he could see it wafting in the air like heat in the desert, bending the air, rippling like water. He wished he knew what he could say to comfort Greg, but he knew it was useless so he tried something practical instead.

"Stop breathing so hard, kid, you'll faint again."

"I didn't faint and I'm not a kid," Greg snapped, his hands flying downward to grip the carpet, his fingernails scraping at the miniscule fibers over and over, the noise like someone popping muted bubblewrap. Suddenly, Greg shot up, his ascent stilted and delayed by some form of sedation, but once he'd regained his equilibrium, John watched his son sweeping slowly around his office, his arms deliberately flung every which way, uncaring as they came into contact with whatever was nearest. It wasn't until Greg knocked over his pencil cup and the contents went clattering to the floor that he froze and took a breath, staring down at the writing implements on the floor with a desperate sort of fear before falling to his knees with a sharp grunt and grabbing the cup, preparing to hurl it at the wall with every ounce of strength he had.

"Gregory!" John said sharply, instantly regretting the jerky flinch he received in response as well as Greg faltered on his bad leg and had to fling out his hands to support himself. Greg was breathing harder than ever now, his entire body heaving, and it was a moment before John realized that tears were falling into a puddle below Greg's face. He was scratching at the carpet again, a mix of languages John didn't know and two, Dutch and Swedish, that he did spat out like bullets from Greg's mouth, his tongue catching on what little Irish they each knew from one or another of Blythe and her siblings' deceased relatives, languages that had been passed along like the objects they all seemed to love so much. Giving up on spoken language, Greg sat back heavily on his backside and John watched him lapse into a flurry of signing that was far too fast for John to even make a guess at, let alone interpret. The tears were still coming and John felt as though his chest were being cleaved open because he knew how it felt to watch your only child in mortal danger and being unable to articulate the sheer force of the emotions running through you. He found it hard enough; he figured Greg found it nearly impossible.

John inched slowly over to Greg and refrained from touching his head (that would get him a blind cuff somewhere and send Greg hurtling back toward the walls as quickly as possible), instead slowly reaching for Greg's hands that he could see were scraped, bruised, and now bleeding from the banging they'd gotten earlier. He frowned slightly, asking softly -- because Greg wouldn't look him in the eyes, those blue eyes he knew so well roving over the scratches, seemingly marveled by the faint swelling and reddened tinge edging them as he flexed his hand to watch the skin split further and bleed a bit more -- for Greg to please stop that, he was hurting himself, and where did he keep his antiseptic and Band-Aids. Greg whimpered as John took hold of his hands and he bit back the urge to cry again, exhaling shakily and repeating his request.

Greg frowned and glanced back toward a large metal cabinet exactly like the one in Robert's hospital room. It was strange that John didn't remember it being there when they'd visited before. But, then again, he hadn't taken his eyes off Gregory's face, trying in vain to get his son to acknowledge his presence. He pushed that day away and concentrated on now. He knew he should probably put on gloves or something, there was probably hospital protocol or something that he should follow, but he settled for washing them at the sink in Gregory's conference room, keeping up a steady stream of commentary on how organized the whole place was -- John was surprised he'd failed to notice before, but kicked himself because when had he ever bothered to notice Gregory's efforts? -- and how it was getting to be time for breakfast and that his mother would be back soon, so they should go see if they could find her something to eat in the cafeteria. It was useless, stupid small talk -- the kind both he and Gregory ordinarily found it difficult to engage in -- but he found that if he kept talking, the silence coming from the other room wouldn't press so loudly on his ears, making him wonder when on earth Greg got this quiet and why he -- he paused and gritted his teeth.

_Stop that shit, idiot,_, he berated himself. _Why the fuck would you know how much he does or doesn't talk? You've never hung around him._

When he returned to where Greg sat in the middle of the floor in his office, he carefully stepped around Greg's stationary form and went to open the cabinet, hesitating at first to ask Greg where everything he needed was kept, but deciding he'd do what he'd made Gregory so many times and figure it the hell out, himself. He knew what the hell isoprophyl alcohol was, after all, and here there were neat stacks of wipes in sterile packages along with rolls of medical tape and bandages, as well as other objects, sealed packages with instruments and syringes that he didn't know the purpose for and didn't want to ask. There were more easily identifiable tools, a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff, something that looked like a small antenna but with a box connected to it by coiled, insulated wire. He vaguely recognized it from the infirmary at the last base he and Blythe had been stationed at before he retired. He thought it was a thermometer, which would have made sense. Shaking his head at his own distraction he turned back to Gregory with Band-Aids, first considering taking care of Greg's wounds himself before thinking the better of it and simply handing the swabs and everything else to his son and watching as Greg passively administered his own care with a detached attention that told John he'd done this many, many times. He fleetingly hoped that it only applied to dealing with patients, but he knew that wasn't the case. Blythe had told him only the previous evening about what Lisa had said regarding some months earlier when Greg had been unable to urinate for several days, had been forced to stop drinking anything because it would have over-hydrated his body -- hyper-something, another medical term that he couldn't remember if he tried -- and went to Wilson for help only to be mockingly rebuffed, told he was just taking too much Vicodin and get over it. Lisa didn't know what Greg had done, really, but she knew that one of the catheter kits had been ordered from the pharmacy not long after that.

John gritted his teeth again and wondered where the hell Wilson had been all this time. Greg was finishing positioning a butterfly Band-Aid between his thumb and forefinger and looked at the wrappers he'd strewn about within the last few moments. John watched him scowl and gather them up, crumpling them together before turning and executing something of a stationary jumpshot. The bundle of wrappers came apart at the last moment, all but one landing in the wastepaper basket. Greg frowned further, muttering, "I hate basketball," before inching up and snatching the last wrapper from the floor and slapping it into the trash can. "I hate football. I hate baseball. Betting's the only thing they're good for."

John opened his mouth to argue, but snapped it shut. He took a deep breath and got slowly to his feet, wincing at the pains in his arms and chest. Greg watched him unblinkingly before scowling yet again and snapping his fingers in his father's direction. "Take off your shirt," he ordered and John found himself taken aback. Greg took a deep breath and rolled his eyes at the ceiling before stomping forward and poking his father's side with two bandaged fingers. John hissed, flinching back and guarding, his breath now labored.

"Son of a bitch," he snarled, his eyes clamping shut.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Greg deadpanned and John's eyes flew back open, horror suffusing his insides.

"I wasn't -- "

"Not this time, maybe. Take off your shirt." Greg's voice was brisk and business-like, but John could hear an undercurrent of strain and took a deep, shuddering breath.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, reaching up to do as Greg had ordered him. "I know you don't believe me -- why shouldn't -- "

"What the fuck did Jet do, beat you with a two-by-four?" Greg's eyes were narrowed as he examined the green and yellow-tinged masses of swollen skin adorning his father's torso like countries on the world map in the atlas he'd read as a child. "And, more to the point, why the hell did you let him do this to you?"

John felt that lump rising again in his throat and shook his head. "I...I...forty-six years..."

"You're a fucking masochist."

"Watch your mouth," John said tiredly, looking back up at the slightly thinned top of Greg's head (his hair was even greyer than John had suspected, he saw, the brown even less apparent now) as his son gently palpated the bruises, taking a moment to roll his eyes again, before examining the inflamed pink line of stitches that curled around toward John's back.

"Watch yours first, Jonathan," Greg said darkly, those blue eyes flashing in his direction again, daring him. This was the Greg he remembered, John knew, the one that raised a middle finger in greeting and some not-so-small part of him was glad to see it even if his son was being blatantly disrespectful. "These stitches will need removing in another week. I'm sure Ducky told you that, but you probably weren't listening. You shouldn't have grabbed me. You almost ripped them. They would have probably come out tomorrow if you hadn't done that."

John opened his mouth to argue but Greg cut him off. "I never asked you to catch me."

"What the hell was I supposed to do, let you fall?"

"Why not?" Greg ground out, his grip never tightening even as he continued redressing John's split-open wounds with bandages that apparently added pressure and going to smear antiseptic ointment over the stitches but flinching and stopping as John hissed again and balled his fists. John heard the unasked questions. _Why didn't you catch me when I needed you to? Why start giving a damn now?_

"I just couldn't," John bit out, resisting flinching again as Greg seemed to change his mind, retrieving a small pair of steel scissors from the cart and whispering, "Sorry about ruining your exemplary handiwork, Duck," before cutting the stitches apart, palpating the edges again -- seemingly satisfied by something -- and beginning to restitch the wound anew. John was mesmerized at the efficient, methodical work his son did, taking only a couple of minutes to close the wound again.

"You're an idiot," Greg muttered as he finished up, tilting his head to the side and not looking John in the eye at all. "And you let Jethro tempt rupturing one of your organs just to prove a point. As it is, you look like a paint palette for a lake or something. You're an masochist and an idiot."

John watched as Greg turned away before stripping off his latex gloves and discarding them, and chuckled despite himself. "So I've been told -- many times with varied languages and syllables -- you may not mince words, but your momma does," he said heavily, putting his shirt back on, and watched disconsolately as Greg slowly got up and went back to ignoring him.

"Where's Wilson?" he ventured after a few minutes of watching Greg wander aimlessly around, fiddling with various objects.

"I don't know. Don't care." John thought for a moment that Greg might be sulking, but the strangely thoughtful look on his face discounted that theory.

"Is..." Greg scowled again and turned away, seemingly berating himself for opening up this line of questioning, but John gripped the edge of Greg's desk and pulled himself into a standing position before sitting back on the foot rest for Greg's Eames chair.

"What?"

Greg grimaced yet again and ran a hand through his hair. John noticed (and his stomach pitched) that Greg's hands were shaking. "Is someone your friend when you don't trust them? Moreover, are they your best friend?"

John blinked, caught off-guard. Greg had never asked him for advice in his life. He seemed to think John would mock or ridicule him for it. But given his previous track-record regarding interactions with his son, John couldn't blame him. "Is this about Wilson or Lisa?"

Greg shot him a confused look. "Lisa goes along with Jimmy's lies and then I get to suffer a deluge of self-flagellation once her conscience has her back in its clutches. Her optimism is her downfall. Wilson has no such delusions -- only that he get me to be someone or something I'm not. But I keep falling for it, so why the hell shouldn't -- "

"I don't give a damn if you keep trusting him or not," John interjected, eliciting a surprised expression from his son. "He's the one abusin' that trust. He's just as bad as I am and one day, he's gonna lose you, too, and he'll deserve it just as much as I did."

Greg stopped, glancing at him before looking down and concentrating on the cane he was now twisting between his palms. "You think you lost me?"

"Should I believe different?" John's voice was fragile, actually truly heartbroken. "And, really, do I deserve to?"

Greg opened his mouth to answer before blinking and closing it, seemingly realizing he didn't know what to say.

"I let myself believe..." John said quietly, watching as Greg's body stiffened again. "That Stacy was doin' the right thing. Goin' against your wishes just as soon as you were too unconscious to say different. I wanted to believe she was right, because that meant I was right -- ignorin' what you wanted all your life just because I...I think I wanted to see ya broken. Because then it'd be like breakin' them like they did me...I did horrible things to you, Greg. That's why Leroy kicked my ass. He knew when he was eight damned years old, first day Blythe and I took ya to see him at my momma's house and he was there starin' at ya and you grabbed his hand..."

John's vision was blurred, he realized. He was crying again. "He...he said that they didn't deserve to have you named after them and you didn't deserve it, either. But I thought I knew better. Forty-six years of blaming you for the...the misdeeds of dead fuckin' assholes who can never, ever come back no matter what. I don't even know who my own son is. I never wanted to. I keep wonderin' who Wilson's tryin' to make you stand in for. Believe me, we're much more fucked up than you ever will be. You think you should be ashamed of yourself for cryin' because Robert's in all this trouble with these seizures that they can't seem to find a reason for because he's on medication -- "

"It's his heart," Greg interrupted before he could stop himself, his voice immediately dropping into some sort of lecture-mode. "Every time his brainwaves switch over from sleep to wakefulness, his brain stem is still operating his heart as though he's asleep. His brain's not getting enough oxygen and he's already got epilepsy from his idiot mother so it's really a default reaction. It occurs in people who don't have epilepsy, but they're more likely just to pass out again. His brain takes the lack of oxygen as a cue to send up a storm. I told Chang he needs a pacemaker to make sure his heart doesn't continue having these arrhythmias because all these seizures could damage his brain tissue and the central nervous system does not regenerate in anyone older than about six weeks old and even then, it's only for things like nerve grafts and is very rare. Acceptance of donor nerves in older patients is even more rare. There's only been one recorded case of someone with a donated limb being able to experience sensation. Anyway."

Greg took a breath and played with his cane for a few more moments. "I noticed that these seizures he's having now that his medication has been resumed only happen during sleep, specifically changes in his state of consciousness. Sleep is often a trigger in epilectics, but it's usually remedied by medication -- the pm dose is higher. He missed three doses -- _which will never happen again_," he ground out and John found himself chuckling a bit. "But they've been compensated for. They should have cessated, but they didn't, so during the EEG..."

Greg took another, deeper breath and gripped the cane so hard John heard the wood creak. "I had to start waking him up because I needed to confirm my theory. I roused him and he immediately began seizing. They're connected. The surgery's scheduled for tomorrow morning."

"You had to -- "

"I _had_ to?" Greg burst out, his breath quickening again and John got to his feet, coming and standing directly in front of his son, who unconsciously assumed the 'at attention' stance before his right leg buckled slightly.

John sighed, "Parade rest, Gregory. Yes, you had to. You needed to help Robert and that was the only way to do it. This is why you said ya couldn't treat your momma or me. You're thinkin' too much about what we'll think. I'm damned sure that Robert of all people, who's watched you work and worked with you for four years, knows why you do what you do. He trusts ya or he never would have let ya tell Dr. Chang to knock him out, seizures or no. He knows you'll take care of it. It's all you've ever done."

Greg let out a shuddering breath. "I had a choice -- "

"No, you didn't. Not if you wanted to help him. You did the right thing, Greg. The only thing you could do."

John House will never forget the painfully astonished look on his son's face afterward. It's the first time either can remember that Greg let his father hug him.

_...This is for everybody who carries the world's weight, but stands up straight -- put a hand up, try to relate..._

...TBC...


	6. I'll Burn Your Family Tree Down

**My Son, You Sleep in Clouds of Fire**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** See part I for the more salient points, but add movies and books to the list behind television shows. Chapter title from 'River Below' by Billy Talent. Quote about 'misbegotten spawn of iniquity' borrowed from an essay of sorts about The Worst Case Scenario, Harry Potter-style, one of the funniest things I've ever read.

**Summary:** Far too much information won't make me a better father.

**chasefest**, Round One **prompt #97:** _House is Chase's biological daddy, Chase has always known, House doesn't._

**Notes:** Remember that this is a sporadic crossover. If you've seen _Juno_, you'll recognize some minor things. Same goes for The Days, NCIS, and _The Butterfly Effect_. Like I said, however, they are minor. And since we know nothing of House's academic career before college, I'm filling in some blanks myself.

Part VI: I'll Burn Your Family Tree Down

_"A man becomes a father when he sees his baby. He's going to get there. He'll get there." - Vanessa Loring_

_...I rushed this...We moved too fast..._

House was dithering. He knew it and didn't know a damned thing he could do about it.

He lay on the floor of his office again, his head somehow cradled against his father's bruised chest, the older man humming quietly as they watched the sun gradually filter in through House's office patio doors. House was thinking, he was always thinking. He just didn't know what about at the moment except to wonder why he was feeling the way he was, what he was feeling -- physically, he wanted to vomit and mentally he was stuck at the top of a crashing elevator.

House wanted to go over to his bookcase and get the battered copy of Vonnegut's Slaughter-house Five (or The Great Gatsby or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...or...) that he can readily say with a strange sort of pride that he never managed to finish and read something to distract him from the fact that he doesn't know what he wants and doesn't know why he would want it. But right then he was too tired to move. His father persuaded him to take a Valium after he fell on the floor again some (long, maybe short) while ago and his legs both felt like they were being twisted and pressed in a vise and it was all he could do not to cry out. The muscle spasms have been getting worse and spreading, bleeding over into his left leg and up his torso.

He didn't want to think about what it would mean -- how the therapist who evaluated him those months ago had written in his file (he'd taken a look when she'd excused herself to take a short phone call) that...well, he didn't quite remember and knew he didn't really want to, but the words _'suicidal ideations'_, _'medication advised'_, _'possible in-patient treatment'_ will flash through his memory every now and again and remind him of more reasons he's not what everyone wants or expects for him.

House sighed heavily and shifted again, trying to find purchase and get some semblance of comfort, but another sharp twitch slashed through both his legs and he could feel his father's worried eyes on him as he tried not to groan again.

"Don't worry," his father's voice was telling him somewhere above his head, one of those big callused hands coming to press him a little closer to Jonathan House's side and he could feel the threaded plastic of the bandages around his father's arms and chest through the thin material of his shirt and it hurt and burned to be touched, but House was too tired to move away. His entire body was tensing in waves and he couldn't seem to relax. He didn't remember the last time he slept through the night; only that it has been getting more difficult to think and maybe the pills (stupid, fucking leash tethering him, depending on him to depend on them) were finally working and he hated so much that he has to care and wished...he didn't know what he wished, but he knew it wasn't this.

And then he didn't think for much longer because everything was hazy and thick and it was too much work to pull the letters he can see in his head into something like a sentence. The pictures, he means. He knew most don't think in pictures after early childhood, but he still does. Crystal clear clarity of the sand in Egypt trickling through his fingers. Filling a cup with water and tossing the water out just to watch it coalesce into some amorphous shape before falling with a splash back into the bathtub. The whir of his fan blades and his eyes following them overhead as he tried to ignore the fact that he wasn't asleep yet. It was all so long ago but it could be right this minute and while he was sick of the haze, he was thankful because for a little while he didn't have to feel, ponder the meaning of his actions...think about the implications of his inaction. Wonder why all of this is suddenly so huge in the scope of his tiny little corner of the world and when the web of his path around it dropped off a little residue in eastern Australia.

Then there wasn't even that because somewhere along the line, his eyes closed and he drifted away and didn't, couldn't care whether he did or not.

_...Am I running from you or am I running from me?..._

John glanced down at the mound of torpid weight currently disguised as his son and chanced a small smile. Greg's left hand was curled in a vague sort of fist on his chest and he could feel the heat emanating from it. He couldn't remember the last time his son was so relaxed in his presence -- or, indeed, the other way around -- and it felt good to be able to say for once in his life that he was bringing comfort to his child instead of causing pain. There were so many moments in his memory bearing out the opposite that sometimes it made him want to simply sit down and weep that he'd mindlessly wasted such a gift as his son. He knew he couldn't erase the past no matter how often he wished to try, but John decided he could at least attempt to help Gregory avoid his own mistakes and recognize Robert for the wonder he was before it was too late. Something inside told him it wouldn't be quite so difficult as it was with him and for that needling feeling, he was grateful.

He checked his watch, noting that sunrise was finally done, and wondered if Gregory would be persuaded to eat something when he awoke again. Blythe had decided upon going to bed that if she could get Gregory and Robert to both come home to Nyack for the summer, she was going to sit them down at the table and not let either of them up until they'd at least cleaned one plate. With Robert's impending surgery, he was certainly going to need to build his strength back up and Gregory...God only knew when Greg had last eaten properly.

Sighing heavily, John chanced one more rub of his hand through Greg's hair and slowly eased his son's body into a more malleable position before getting to his feet and carefully picking him up. John hasn't carried Greg since before he was in elementary school but he thinks the body in his arms should be weightier than it is. The backs of his eyes burned once more and he had to stand still for a few moments and breathe as deeply as he could, again mastering the urge to cry before moving Greg toward the long recliner in the corner next to the balcony windows and laying him upon it.

Standing straight and gasping further, John swiped at his face, turning jerkily and snatching a few tissues from the box on Greg's desk.

It didn't do any good to cry, he told himself. It certainly didn't mean anything to Greg. It just wouldn't help. John tore his eyes away from Greg's desk and cast around for something light to cover him with. His eyes alighted on Greg's white lab coat hanging on the coat rack behind the double glass doors. He'd strode over to retrieve it when he noticed James Wilson unlocking the doors next to Greg's. Something gripped him inside and he abandoned the coat in his haste to reach the man in the hall before he became too busy.

"Your phone broken?" he asked roughly, catching Wilson by surprise. Confusion flitted across Wilson's face for a moment and John resisted the urge to tap his foot. The other man ran a hand through his fluffy hair and winced slightly, glancing back at John before continuing into his office and shrugging off his suit coat to trade it for his own lab coat. "Well? I asked you a question."

Wilson's surprise grew, followed by more bafflement, and John gritted his teeth for a moment before narrowing his eyes and elaborating for Wilson's 'benefit'.

"More than a day ago, Greg asked you to come back to Robert's room where he'd been hospitalized and to talk to him. He hasn't seen you since then. Lisa told my wife that she had to go to Baltimore in Gregory's stead and she's going to talk to him when she gets back from meeting with the insurance companies. Have you forgotten how to use a telephone because I'd be happy to help you relearn."

By the time John finished talking, Wilson looked to be stirring himself up into some sort of speech but John cut him off. "I'm not interested in your excuses, Wilson. I'm interested in never having to see the look on my son's face that I did when he told me you hadn't come back and hadn't called. I'm interested in never hearing him have to ask me what makes someone your best friend."

"That's -- completely unfair," Wilson broke in, his face contorting in indignation. "You have _no idea_ the utter crap that _your precious son_ has put me through over the -- "

"Like lyin' about needin' his prescription, right? Or not being able to take a piss for days straight -- he's lyin' about that, too, huh? Lyin' about the pain in his leg comin' back -- is that it?"

Inwardly, John marveled at the quiet control he felt. Part of him wanted to scream himself hoarse at the ass in front of him, but the larger part simply felt sorry for him.

"You dumb, fuckin' idiot. You don't even see what the hell you're doin'..." John took a deep breath and simply found himself gazing at this complete and utter fool, almost at a loss for words. "Where you're headin', you can't come back from and let me tell you: the new place has shitty accommodations."

"What...what on earth are you talking about?" Wilson's eyes were darting around below John's eye-level, looking for an explanation he wasn't going to find.

"You really think Gregory's the one with the problem, don't ya?" John sighed and let his head fall back so that he was seeing the ceiling. He was so tired suddenly.

John longed to simply sit down next to Greg, lean his head back, and sleep for the next ten years. He almost didn't care if the nightmares came for him. They would and he'd shake them off and take the pills his own doctor had given him and wait for the memories to dull, to stop touching him. He'd get there eventually and be able to sleep at least a couple of hours. He suddenly wanted to ask Greg where they should have dinner after Robert was released, but that could wait. It would wait. Wilson's voice filtered back in.

"...not even listening to me, are you? Well, now I know where House gets it from!" John's attention snapped back to where Wilson stood glaring at him in an irritatingly patronizing fashion. As though John were affirming something he'd long known and was finally able to prove.

"You'll shut your mouth about my son or I'll goddamned shut it for you," John stated flatly, prompting Wilson to fling his hands up and turn away before bringing them to his hips.

"You're impossible!"

"You'll find I don't much care for anything you think of me. You think I don't know you're not at all the innocent angel you've convinced yourself you are? Not if you can look at a man constantly in a kind of pain that neither you or I can begin to imagine and tell him that nothing he's saying matters. Not if you can look him in the eye, lie to him again and again, and blame _him_ for the fact that you're lyin'. I've been where you are, Wilson, and I've got to tell you -- when you hit bottom and no one's there to catch you, it'll be your own fuckin' fault."

John abruptly turned and started to walk away, but Wilson's feet quickly caught up with his own. "Wait a minute, you know -- House isn't innocent here, he's done as much as he can to drive me crazy."

John paused, glanced down at his feet, and turned to face Wilson, staring coldly into the angry brown eyes before him. "I certainly hope you're not comparing my son's 'penchant for recreational annoyance' -- his second grade teacher wrote that description -- to completely ignoring his health issues to the point where he'll suffer in silence rather than set himself up for the mockery and lies he'd get for requesting help."

John began walking forward, forcing Wilson to begin backing up instead. "I certainly hope that he has a doctor somewhere to replace the one Lisa says she's not anymore. I certainly hope, Wilson, for your sake that my son isn't gravely ill and I don't find out he asked you for help before it was too late and all you did was laugh and brush him off for your own comfort at the expense of his."

John stopped and stuck his face inches from Wilson's. "Because if that's the case, Dr. Wilson, I will find you and I will hurt you. You'll know what pain is when I'm finished. Maybe you'll even wish you were dead but I certainly won't give you that satisfaction."

_Baby boy had a big old heart, large enough to tear apart -- split evenly in two, evenly in two..._

Wilson's face paled steadily and the younger man took another unconscious step back. John didn't follow, simply settling for balling his fists at his sides. "You'll find out what it's like to be Greg firsthand. Maybe you'll figure him out when you've tried to kill yourself and someone you thought cared found you and simply walked...walked the fuck away."

John felt his voice constrict in his throat and his eyes burning, but forced himself to keep watching Wilson through the haze of humiliation burning within him. "Because not only will you figure out what it'd be like to be Greg, you'll realize you already know firsthand what it's like to be me -- to have this fire catching at your heels, this hatred you can't even put a name to and you don't know where it came from so you stick it on the first unbelievable thing you find, pull him down and make him bear the heat instead. Make him suffer for you. I don't know who you've dressed my son up as in your head, your heart, but you're killing him just as surely as the pain eating him alive."

An artless laugh, completely devoid of humor fell from John's lips then and he shook his head sadly before turning to find Greg standing in the hallway outside his door, his coat having fallen from nerveless hands to pool around his feet. John quickened his pace and made the short walk back to snatch the coat up before Greg tried to walk and tripped over it. He brushed it off absently and hung it around Greg's shoulders before taking hold of them and steering him back into his office. Wilson was still standing in the hall but John didn't, couldn't care. He guided Greg back to the chair and gently maneuvered him back into sitting on the footstool.

_...Welcome to the fallout, welcome to existence...The tension is here, the tension is here...Between who you are and who you could be, between how it is and how it should be..._

"Who are you and what have you done with my dad?" Greg's voice was shrewd, wary. John hated that he had every right to be.

"I was lost, Greg...lost somewhere out there. It took way too long, I've burned far too many bridges, but I think I'm finally home."

Greg watched him with an uncomprehending expression that John's mostly seen when Greg wasn't aware of his presence, as though he was loathe to admit lack of understanding whenever John has been around, opting instead for the safe haven of blank stares and noncommittal mutterings. It was like scrubbing grit off objects buried at sea, trying to coax Greg to bare the merest hint of personality and John hated that he had a right to that, too.

"Mom knows what I did on Christmas Eve," Greg murmured, his long body curving forward as he took his head in his hands, John's earlier words having obviously been heard. John resisted the urge to lay an arm around Greg's shoulders, knowing it wouldn't be appreciated or tolerated. John instead put his hands to his knees and exhaled.

"It wasn't a difficult conclusion to reach, no," John answered heavily. "She said Lisa told her all the shit you've been through this year."

Greg sucked in a sharp breath, his hands involuntarily clenching around the padding of the stool beneath him. John stood up and turned back to face him, taking the lab coat back up and laying it over Greg's unnaturally still shoulders. "You're ashamed of me." John frowned and briefly closed his eyes, as always, hearing the unspoken words. _Again._

"I'm afraid for you. I've never been ashamed of you and I'll never start."

Greg's eyes fleetingly sought his before darting away again. "I don't know what to do."

John frowned slightly and this time did put his arm around Greg's shoulders, gripping more firmly when Greg tensed up. "That's okay."

"No, it's -- "

"Greg. It's _okay_ to be afraid. To not know what to do. What's not okay is never trying to figure it out different ways or never asking for help and you've never been guilty of either of those things. It's not your fault that we've failed you."

Greg's distressed eyes jerked up sharply to stare at him. "I didn't -- "

"You didn't have to say it, Greg. You never would. It was our burden to realize it and you did everything you could to get us to see. It's not your fault we tied on blindfolds..." John frowned bitterly, this time the one unable to meet Greg's eyes. "Or put our eyes out just so we didn't have to. Just...you don't have to let me do anything. You can say the word and I'll never darken your doorstep again -- "

"I never wanted that!" Greg's whispered plea was desperate, small in the cavern of this room and John thought the air might just swallow it whole.

"I'm...unbelievably glad to hear that. Just -- promise me you'll remember that Robert wants the same from you. Just that you don't leave of your own free will. Promise me you won't give up like I did."

John turned and sat again on the floor, laying his bandaged arms over his knees and stared at the carpet beneath him before blurting out, "Promise you'll continue to be a better man than me."

"I'm not -- " Greg began to bite, but John cut him off.

"Why'd you call your momma and tell her about Robert?" John swallowed thickly and continued more steadily, "You could have taken that secret to the grave -- didn't have to tell a damned soul. Certainly not us -- not _me_."

"I...don't know," Greg huffed, anger seeping into his voice and John looked back up at him. "Do I have to have a reason?"

"Yeah," John said shortly, reaching over and nudging Greg's foot with the back of his hand. "For everything. You always have."

"I don't know why, alright?" Greg reached up and ran a hand through his hair, staring unseeingly at the carpet below. "I haven't...I haven't figured it out yet."

"Is it something you have to do right away?"

Greg stared at him, clearly appalled. "He's downstairs going into surgery, Dad. I think it's kind of imperative."  
John paused before speaking. "'Imperative'...now there's a word I'll only hear in a sentence from your momma's side of the family."

Greg stared further, his eyes narrowing slightly as he scowled, "Are you really going to choose now to start worrying over my vocabulary?"

"Who said I was worried about that? I'd say we both have better things to think about. I'm just sayin' that you've always picked words in your sentences...they're kind of like one of those Transformer things Liberty Bell likes to play with...always thought those were boy toys, but anyway -- they start as one thing and end up another, but you can always see the connection between the two."

Greg was watching him again when John glanced up. He chuckled, a bit embarrassed and sighed. "Remember when I was stationed at Selfridge in Clinton Township and you got a place at Interlochen for the final two years?"

Greg nodded, his face creasing more as he tried to figure out where this was going.

"While you were there, you wrote those papers and stories and your momma kept every one of them. They're in a special box in the den and I...I read through them a couple of days after your momma and I got in from France. Your teachers had written notes in the margins of rough drafts and the final ones and the things they wrote about you -- _'...your words take on avian form, uplifting what whence was too heavy to fly...'_"

Greg was staring at him now, his eyes wider than John has seen them in a painfully long time. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out and after several tries, he closed it again and his eyes trailed away to stare into the distance again. When Greg's head had risen again, his face was wet as was his collar and a deep blush had colored his cheeks, visible even through what was quickly becoming a beard.

"You read them," his choked voice burbled out, followed by something between a sob and a chuckle.

"Every word," John affirmed, reaching over again and this time gripping across the toes of Greg's right foot, heedless of the faint dampness of the sock encasing it. So Greg's feet stank -- whose didn't?

Greg nodded. "What'd you think?" he asked, his voice coming out half-sob, half-chuckle and his head continued to bob rapidly as though containing metal spring instead of bone.

"What'd you think?"

John grinned then and looked back up at Greg once more. "I have a sneaking suspicion you may have chosen the wrong profession, son." Then something occurred to him and he bit his lip to gather his courage. "Got anything new for me?"

Greg's watery laugh burst out of him seemingly against his will and he got slowly to his feet and went to the shelf system that seemed to act as the office's skeleton. He pulled a fabric-covered school binder from the topmost shelf. Greg paused and opened it, staring at the contents with apprehension visibly filling him.

John was motionless, waiting to see what Greg would do and breathed again only when Greg resumed his trek back to the chair. John took the binder filled with both printed and handwritten pages and found himself grappling with a sense of anticipation he hasn't felt in a terribly long time. Even the sensation of air pressure at twenty-thousand feet became little more than background noise to the gaping maw where he realized part of his heart used to be, the scrolling torrent of thoughts in his head repeating again and again that part of him was missing and when in hell was he going to bother trying to find it?

John glanced around the pages in his hands, red, blue, and black ink hieroglyphs jumping out randomly at him until his brain caught up with his eyes and words formed.

He breathed again and smiled.

_...If you believe in me, how can I be dissolving -- if you believe me, I'll tell you everything..._

"Chase's stepfather cut him out of his will," House murmured, beadily eyeing the tiles of the operating theater walls around him. Both his parents' heads turned toward where he leaned on the wall before him, staring down into the operating room as the heart surgeons worked to place his new pacemaker. They'd been there for twenty minutes before House had spoken at all and he still wasn't looking at either of them.

"What the fuckin' hell'd he do that for?" his father's voice queried before his mother's voice shushed him.

"John, don't swear -- please?"

"It's been sixty-nine years, Mom," House muttered, a grin coming to his face despite himself. "Why bother now?"

"Oh, shut up," John said as his profile came into view. "What'd he do that for?"

"Guess I know now, don't I?" House scowled, narrowing his eyes down at the familiar tableau below. "I'd always wondered -- now I know. Maybe he thought Chase had told me -- he didn't know his stepson very well. Prick."

His mother sighed, "Gregory, I just asked your father not to swear -- why join in?"

House winced visibly before turning to stare at his mother with a plaintive look on his face. "Mom, _please_, for the sake of all that's respectful, don't make me answer that question."

Beside House, John snorted before he could stop himself. Blythe shot him a dirty look and House sighed heavily.

"I was serious, you know." He shook his head. "I feel like I'm in an episode of Nip/Tuck -- guess this means Wilson's Christian Troy. Crap, maybe that means Chase is really _his_ son!"

House flung his hands up in the air and ran them over his head before pausing and gyrating slightly to the right.  
"Wait, that means I'm Sean! I don't want to be Sean or any other part of the Unholy Triad -- I want to be Wilbur! He still has a chance to grow up to be a decent human being! Conor, too!"

"You do realize we have no idea what you're talking about, don't ya?"

House sighed, "I know. It doesn't particularly matter. Does that make Cuddy Liz? Ooh, lesbianism and a voice of reason! Wait a second, that means Julia, too, now -- and she's an idiot. The only time I liked her, she was smothering her mother with a pillow..."

"What the hell are you even talking about?"

"You'd have to watch. If I can say the words 'organ theft' and they don't mean anything to you then there's not much I can do to help you."

House chuckled a bit, "Looking back, I wonder where I got the time to watch television at all this year."

"You had some pretty important things going on," Blythe countered, frowning up at him.

House flung his hands up in a gesture of mock-defeat. "Yeah, I did. I was too distracted by an overwhelming sense of personal doom and violation to pay proper attention to my TiVo. This season of Nip/Tuck has been pretty clear in my calendar, though. I haven't even been properly sued or openly harassed in a couple of months now. I'd say I was losing my touch, but I haven't done clinic duty in three months so that really doesn't count."

Both his parents were silent now and House could feel their eyes on him. He exhaled forcefully and wheeled himself around, throwing himself into a furious pace. "I don't want to talk about that. I can bet that Chase doesn't want to discuss any of his three ridiculous excuses for parents either. So let's just not and say we did because lying's always fun. Except when it's not. Look, I'm easily distracted -- especially right now. Can we do this later? Or -- much more preferably -- never?"

"Why?" John asked sharply, throwing his own hands up and drawing House's attention. "So it can eat you alive again? Look -- Greg, I'm -- we're not askin' ya to talk to us. We're just askin' you to talk to _someone_. That you trust, that you _can_ trust."

House looked like he was going to interrupt and John hurried to continue. "And before you ask, it matters because we all know that you want to do everything you can for Robert and that includes living."

John ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. "I...I know most of you wants to believe that nothing is a big deal -- part of that's true. Worrying yourself to death isn't going to help anyone, least of all you. You need something to focus your worry on, make it productive. Who better than someone who wants and needs your help and not just 'cause he's dyin'?"

House stared at his father, his mouth slightly open, and John noted absently that this was the second time in less than three hours that he'd rendered Greg speechless. He decided then and there that he hated it and never wanted to see it again.

"Say somethin', please," John pleaded, grimacing at Greg's blank face.

Greg blinked, quietly glancing down and twisting his cane between his palms. "How can I be a parent to him?"  
John grimaced visibly, but didn't answer so House plowed onward, "He's going to ask me questions, ask my opinion. I want to tell him my opinion shouldn't matter, but it does. I don't know how to reassure him that one or two drinks won't turn him into a raging alcoholic -- not when I have more alcohol in my home than at my neighborhood bar and that it's not a gross overestimation to say so. I can't ignore the breakthrough pain long enough to fall asleep without two shots of gin. I don't want him or anyone else to see that. I get to look back on cases we've had -- he's matey with a dominatrix, did you know that? He met her at a Dark Revel or something and _says_ they're only acquaintances. How can I be a parent when I have a detailed..."

House hesitated, glancing upward and tilting his head to the side, his face lifting into a contemplating expression. "Well, no -- I have an imagination and know firsthand that he sucks at domination because he couldn't even order the patient to open his mouth. How many other parents can put two and two together and know their kid is a sub and understands that has nothing to do with teaching kids?"

House scowled, then, "How many parents know their son didn't come into work on time once because he and one of their other minions were out having methamphetamine-induced unprotected sex like a couple of suicidal clinic patients?"

House laughed sardonically then, lifting his cane and raising it to eye-level as though he was staring down the sight of a rifle. "How many parents know their son is being sneezed and bled on like Kleenex because Cameron can't get her personality on straight? How many parents get to lecture their son on the importance of _not having sex in one of the sleep labs_ during overnight observation of a patient who promptly went blind as soon as they slipped out of the video booth -- have either of you ever gotten to lecture your misbegotten spawn of iniquity who is really the most beautiful thing you've ever accomplished on anything like that? Because I have and more. Far too much information won't make me a better father. He's not stupid, I don't have to lecture him on condoms."

House turned away and lowered the cane, beginning to pace again, running his free hand through his hair. "I have to make sure he doesn't let his hobbies and predilections land him in the ER during a case or on off-days, for that matter. I have to be impressed that his sexual inclinations involve the utmost forethought and respect and expansive knowledge in a variety of disciplines because otherwise would make it a crime or grounds for accidental death. I don't want to think about diapers I didn't get to change or crayon I didn't get to scrub off the walls or not getting to pretend I know the blob of clay I've been brought is supposed to be a lizard or dragging him bodily from bed during summer vacations or teaching him to aim for the toilet and not Daddy's favorite shoes."

House shuddered, a peculiar sensation of revulsion and indignation flowing through him he realized, and let it build, propelling him forward so the cowardice racing alongside everything else didn't become paramount, "I didn't even get to know he existed for the first twenty-four years of his life and in that time he managed to graduate high school -- sorry, secondary early enough to qualify as the same kind of freak I am."

His father grimaced, his mother flinched, but House couldn't let himself stop -- not now. "I had to wait until he was almost thirty before I could discuss the train wreck that is 'The O.C.' and how I watched any damned way because it's all so captivating in its annoyance and devastation -- meaning it's damned good television -- or debate with him about the possible fate of our dear Professor Snape come July sixteenth and yes, I know the books didn't come out until ninety-seven -- that still made him eighteen and probably in med school by that point based on his history. He managed to start and drop out of the seminary, lapse into some sort of faithlessness because -- like father, like son."

House was pacing again, he vaguely noticed. "I didn't get to do any...any of that because I didn't even know he was mine or even alive and what happens if something goes wrong down there and he needs a blood transfusion -- he can't have mine -- mine's filled with narcotics. 'Universal donor', nothing -- my blood would kill him..."

The words just kept tumbling out. House couldn't breathe. He had to get away from the pair of them, away from their rightfully heartbroken faces, away from the tightening of his throat and the stinging of his eyes and those goddamned tears leaking out no matter how hard shut he squeezed his eyes. He wanted very much to die just now -- it was like a light switch, how easily the thought came to him. And it scared him because he knew that he simply no longer cared if he lived or died, only if Robert did. He needed to do something, to go spin samples of his and Chase's blood in the labs because he'd be even more of a fucking hypocrite not to do so now after how much he'd harangued Crandall about Leona.

He didn't know whether or not to be surprised at remembering her name.

"Greg, breathe. Just breathe." His father's voice wafted over him, muddled and thick with emotion. House slid down the wall and pulled his legs up to his chest again. His father knelt down and placed both hands on his shoulders. "Close your eyes and tell yourself it'll be okay."

His mother was hastily searching her purse and House rose gingerly to take it from her and removed the handkerchief tucked into a side pocket before he returned to sit at the wall with the purse and methodically began to unpack it, spread the objects around him like a protective shield before he turned it over and dumped out the litter of old receipts as well as a nickel and dime onto the floor with hollow, ringing clatters.

House silently continued to reorganize his mother's purse, finally snapping it shut before he rose slowly to return it to her.

"It doesn't make you a bad man," she whispered, tears leaking from her own eyes as she reached to retake her purse and signed **Thank you**, tapping her chin twice with her index finger.

"You're..." House's eyes widened in shock. "I just told you I'm exactly the same thing Robert spent his entire childhood being miserable about and all you can say is 'thank you for reorganizing my purse's contents'?"

"Yes," Blythe whispered, not taking her hand away but pressing it further.

House jerked away and stared at her, his tone becoming accusing and bewildered, "I'm a drug-addicted alcoholic hypocrite who lectures people on sappiness but secretly wishes he had pictures of a little boy on his desk, what the fuck is wrong with the both of you?"

"Nothing except that you just swore at me," Blythe stated firmly, reaching up with her free hand to pinch House's arm and give the skin a sharp little twist. He winced and signed an apology. "But I'll let it slide because if you've gone through what you have and won't complain, won't retaliate, can't see the point in either, then I think a well-earned tantrum that wasn't actually directed at me can be forgiven just this once. You have my explicit permission, not to mention are under direct orders to seek refuge if you feel one starting in the future, though."

Her smile was terribly sad and perceiving and House couldn't understand any of it. His father took up the slack in filling the uncomfortable silence again.

"You're only what you think you are and while maybe..." John breathed deeply, trying not to let the enormous weight of what Greg was admitting to them keep him from getting his point across. "Maybe you're an alcoholic...you're not proud of that and you at least admit it. You think I believe you like any of the things you do? If I was in half the pain you are, I'd...well, alcohol certainly isn't ruled out as an option."

House snorted and looked up at the ceiling, a vicious little grin coming to his face. "Of all the times _not_ to be in trouble for something...you choose now -- when I'm turning my liver into a distillery in its own right."

John folded his arms, refusing to rise to the bait. "Give me one good reason why I should blame you for any of your faults?"

House blinked, now completely confused. "Because...you've never been a fan of mercy before so, really, why start now?"

John sighed and elaborated, "I know -- I never shut up, but it's obvious you don't need me to do it, need me to remind you. Your momma's been tryin' to tell me that for years but I was convinced I knew better, even as I was accusin' you of the same thing."

House stared now, unable to think of doing or saying anything and John frowned again and plowed forward, "As long as you were in front of me, conscious and breathing and bitchin' and bein' a disrespectful, arrogant little snot, I guess I thought my job was done and whatever you did or went through was your own fault. If it wasn't alcohol, it'd be something else because you haven't had a moment's peace in so fuckin' long, you don't even remember what it was like."

John's voice was quiet now, almost wistful. "I remember, back when you were a kid yourself. You used to smile. You used to laugh, giggle even. I can't fault you for not being happy. I can't damned well say you're not being optimistic enough for my liking. What the fuck have you got to be optimistic about in your everyday life _except_ for Robert? No, I won't pretend it doesn't kill me that you admit to bein' an alcoholic, but it kills me and most definitely you a whole hell of a lot more that you have so many perfectly good reasons for wanting to self-destruct. I just want to show you, help you see that you have reasons to stay here, too."

House couldn't see his father's face through the tears clouding his vision and blinked rapidly to clear them. "I don't want to stay for me," he whispered, pressing his face into his knees just as he'd seen Robert do in his office.  
"Then stay for us and him because I can tell you that the hole you'll be leaving behind in our lives is big enough as it is. You have to live every day knowing you'll be dead sooner rather than later and what the circumstances will most likely be -- like a fuckin' knife over your heart. The fact that you have tried to kill yourself doesn't take away from the fact that after surviving yet again, you go right back to yet more surviving. It's all you're able to do -- I'm mystified you haven't snapped, son!"

John's face was so painful to look at that House couldn't.

"Who says I haven't? Want to know what the therapist who evaluated me for the cancer thing wrote in her file?"

"That's none of my business."

House slowly lifted his head and looked up at his father. Then his mother. Then through the balcony windows above his line of sight where he could hear closing instructions being issued.

"Then why?"

"Why, what?"

"Why bother?"

John's eyes fell closed and House watched his shoulders sag before he opened them again. "Because you have to ask me that."

_...Don't want to reach for me, do you? I mean nothing to you...The little things give you away and now there will be no mistaking, the levees are breaking..._

...TBC...


	7. Amputating That Too Slow

**My Son, You Sleep in Clouds of Fire**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** See part I for the more salient points, but add movies and books to the list behind television shows. Chapter title from 'Amputations' by Death Cab for Cutie. Lyrics from other Death Cab for Cutie songs. Thatcher belongs to me. *shrugs*

**Summary:** "I _know_ and I couldn't do that. That'd be..."

_Selfish_, John could just hear Greg say and, sure enough, Dr. Cameron filled in the blank for them all.

**chase_fest**, Round One **prompt #97:** _House is Chase's biological daddy, Chase has always known, House doesn't._

**Notes:** I gave up fanfiction for a while to see if I could do it, and I did, and now I'm having a bit of a time getting back into it. I do plan to go on with my stories, though, canon psychosis be damned. Reviews are always encouraged and deeply appreciated.

Part VII: Amputating That Too Slow

_His head was a city of paper buildings in the echoes that remained of old friends and lovers, their features bleeding, together in his brain...But once it starts, it's harder to tell them apart..._

It was the same as nearly always, waking up and seizing, but it was less violent somehow this time. The aura had been without the nausea of late, more like looking at the outlines in a coloring book but he wasn't worried...couldn't be. His head swam and his body moved, but there was no fear, no pain of overextended muscles when it ended. He stilled and could breathe steadily again and there was a nurse in surgical scrubs was injecting something into his drip. He was fuzzy enough as it was, but he drifted away before he could protest.

He dreamed and it was like looking through a telescope at his own thoughts. But he was warm and safe so he simply floated. There were voices swirling around him but he couldn't make them out.

***

House bypassed post-op altogether and took the path that led past Chase's room in the Cardiac ICU, stopping at the nurse's station to ask that he be called when Chase was taken back to his room.

"House, Chase is a cardiac patient -- you know you can't..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know that," House snapped, running a hand through his hair. "I just want to be told when he's brought back up. Humor me, here."

One of the night nurses, Thatcher, was in report for a double-shift. House supposed he was lucky or something -- the night nurses didn't hate him like the day ones did. He thinks it's the quality of the coffee.

Thatcher sighed and reached up, making a face and pretending to flick him on the nose. House ducked backward and stumbled slightly. Righting himself, he glared at her. "Can you be serious for five seconds?"

Thatcher smirked and House heard his father snort behind him. "You're one to talk. Fine, I'll call you but you're not his physician of record -- or anyone else's actually, you've emphatically refused every time if Cuddy and Wilson are to be believed -- and you're not Chase's next of kin. You'll have to stick to visiting hours and you know it. Don't make me break regs just to give you a chance to pull some stunt."

House groaned, "Fine, fine. I have a call to make anyway."

He frowned and wheeled back around, pointedly avoiding his parents' eyes as they continued up to his office.

_...This is the moment that you know that you told her that you loved her but you don't..._

Cameron closed her locker door with a bang and exhaled, throwing her lab coat on and beginning the trek up to the fourth floor. Chase had stood her up and she supposed she was fine with that.

Microwave pizza and all that. She was the one who'd sworn it was never going to be anything more than convenient, casual sex with someone she knew pretty well whenever they felt like it -- she could persuade Chase anytime, after all. Microwave pizza, exactly.

So why was she so angry?

_And if it was just how you wanted you'd be glued to his bones and his brainstem..._

John watched as Dr. Cameron stomped into House's office and stopped short to find him halfway through dialing someone's number while he and Blythe sat in the chairs in front of his desk.

"Dr. Cameron!" he crowed in a game show host's exuberant fashion. "Just the Jezebel I wanted to speak to!"

Dr. Cameron scowled and tried to ignore the burning sensation in her cheeks as John's eyes locked right on her. "Can it wait, House, I -- "

"Nope!" Greg objected airily, reaching under his desk to pull out bottled water and began to toss it from hand to hand. "I don't suppose it occurred to you to actually _call back here_ when Chase never made it home night before last. Oh -- right, it'd interfere with your flimsy sense of self-righteousness to know he had heart surgery this morning."

Dr. Cameron felt her heart drop into her shoes as she gasped, "What? Is he alright?"

"Do you _care_?" Greg asked pointedly, causing Dr. Cameron to emit an affronted noise before she could stop herself.

"Of course I -- "

"Then why'd it take you so long to figure -- oh, wait, you didn't! So much for that assumption!" Greg turned his back on her and hobbled into the conference room as quickly as he could, knowing she'd follow.

Dr. Cameron resisted the urge to glance at either himself or Blythe as she strode forward to catch the door before it closed, "You're being completely unfair -- "

"So we're even, then -- great," Greg said shortly, any earlier traces of affability gone now. John could picture Greg's angry face as he stood in the kitchen as easily as he could hear his voice. "Is breaking Chase's heart while you get a warm body and an easy lay in the sack the _whole_ plan? I didn't hire you so you could -- "

Dr. Cameron was yelling before she realized it, "You _hired me_ because I'm _pretty_," she bit out, advancing on Greg until John could see he'd backed up toward the refrigerator. He had to stop himself from leaving his chair and settle for simply watching, "You specifically said you hired me for my ass, not my brain!"

"I did if that's what you got from what I said," Greg exploded then, causing Blythe to startle in her chair and grip John's hand momentarily. "If you're so insecure as to ask _why_ I hired you, then of course I'm going to make shit up! Look back, Dr. Cameron, look inside you -- or wherever the hell you hide your personality, and you'll find why I hired you!

"You wanna know why I hired Chase? Because it astonished me that his stepfather, who should have been licking my boots trying to get _his_ kid in my door, would actually tell me _not_ to hire him! _Naturally_, I was curious! I hired Foreman because he didn't _reoffend_ like so many other idiots! He actually learned from his mistakes and, in fact, became -- by far -- the most boring person I have ever come across! He is _not_ a statistic and I found that -- hell, I found it awesome! _I'm_ way more likely to commit a crime than Foreman is!"

"Gee, _there's_ a big shocker," Dr. Cameron sniped, then, her arm flashing in the doorway as she seemingly gestured toward Greg.

"Yeah, yeah -- let's all gang up on the morally corrupt cripple -- "

"You're not morally corrupt -- or bankrupt, or any other deficit. I hate that Foreman ever said that to you because it's just not true. You're an insensitive ass who delights in making people as uncomfortable as possible but you're not a liar or even really a thief. You play pranks, you say mean things, but you never enjoy making someone cry. You hate when you lose because it means people die and you'd never even consider giving one person better or worse care than anyone else. Why do you think you're so horrible?"

Greg paused for a moment before asking calmly, "Cameron, where in the hell did that come from?"

Dr. Cameron's silhouette threw its hands up and turned away momentarily before taking a breath, "Did you actually _listen_ to what I just said or is taking a compliment gracefully a fate worse than death?"

"I've died, Cameron -- " Greg screwed up his face before amending, "For two or so minutes."

Dr. Cameron acquiesced, though bitterly. "A-aand, I have my question answered. I give up -- you're a monster who eats babies. And kittens -- they're probably your delicacy!"

"Well, when Wilson packs my lunch, he'll sprinkle a little Mrs. Dash on my sautéed kitten -- it's the little things..."

Dr. Cameron seemed to make a face of some sort and Greg frowned, as if thinking something over and glanced downward before beginning to play with his cane. "Were you popular in high school?"

A pause. "Why? What do you care?"

The side of Greg's face crumpled again as he purposely stared at the spot of ceiling over Dr. Cameron's head. "Foreman quit -- took a month to do so, but quit nonetheless -- "

"Yeah, and dragged your name through the mud the whole time -- "

"Will you stop?" Greg burst out, gesturing at her. "I need to get this out before I chicken out or do something else equally unpleasant and I can't do it if you're going to play geek chorus!"

"You mean 'Greek'."

"Shut up, Cameron," House ordered, beginning to pace, at which John saw Blythe frown disapprovingly. "Foreman quit and took the 'sanction' out of 'sanctimonious' -- shut _up_, Dr. Cameron!" Greg overrode another objection to his choice of words and plowed onward before his nerve failed him and Blythe frowned even harder but John found himself more intrigued than anything else.

"I fired Chase because he's learned all he can and, probably, should from me. That's two down, but you fit in neither category and had absolutely no reason to jump the fence to either side, so -- what gives? Were you a Mean Girl?"

"What, no, of course not."

Greg sighed, "You've never seen that movie, have you?"

"No, House, I've been working too much for trivialities such as a social life -- but you knew that. Oh, and poor you. You've probably even let your subscription to Girls Gone Wild lapse."

"Girls Gone Wild isn't a magazine series, Cameron -- duh. I did reference popularity -- context clues. Honestly, you've been away from me for two whole days. I can only wonder what ten years will do."

"Besides preserve my sanity, oh nothing."

John glanced at Blythe, wondering if she, too, felt like she was witnessing a very slow-motion car wreck. He could see Greg was trying to do what most people did and care about the opinions of others, trying to gauge Dr. Cameron's opinion of him, and explain his opinion of her...but it just wasn't flying well. Greg's words had bent wings or something and kept fluttering lamely to the ground or else darted over her head before she had a chance to figure out what he was saying.

Blythe, it seemed, was torn between disapproval, compassion, and amusement and couldn't settle on any which one.

"_Were you popular?_" Greg finally repeated slowly and clearly, causing Dr. Cameron to sigh before answering, "Sure."

"So you saw the others fleeing for cover and decided ducking out with them was your best chance for survival. Oh."

"I did not!" Dr. Cameron protested, her tone highly affronted. "And, anyway, you tossed Chase out on his butt -- if you didn't want -- "

"Chase..." Greg burst out before visibly calming himself and starting again. "He's _done_ here. I said that."

"Oh, like that matters! He'd stay here until he's as old as you if only you'd let him."

"I _know_ and I couldn't do that. That'd be..."

_Selfish_, John could just hear Greg say and, sure enough, Dr. Cameron filled in the blank for them all.

"Selfish -- just like that mother we treated -- that one who decided that having a healthy child as opposed to a sick one, which is just so much more work, was more important even than her marriage or her life, or even the kid himself. You don't want to ruin this job for him...or me."

A pause. "Or even Foreman."

At those words, the doors flew open and Greg stomped back past them without a word.

_...I don't mind restrictions or if you're blacking out the friction...It's just an escape, it's overrated anyways..._

His legs, his feet seemingly carried John without his permission, somehow knowing where Greg was headed even if he had no proof. Sure enough, when John found Greg, he was leaning against the window leading to Robert's room, his forehead against the glass. John waited for Greg to speak, but he remained silent for more than a minute after John's arrival until, "She didn't call me. I guess she likes me less than I thought."

"Or maybe she's busy," John tried to object lightly. "You found your way back soon enough. Dr. Cameron did, too."

Greg snorted, rolling his eyes. "She didn't come here for me -- or even Chase. She came here because she hasn't got dick-else to do. Plus, she kind of works -- worked here."

He deflated slightly at these words and John held in a frown but said slowly, "I realize that I'm hardly the person who should be telling you to watch your language -- "

Greg snorted again, a small chuckle leaking out.

"But stop swearing. You're better than that."

Greg seemed to consider arguing otherwise, but instead simply nodded. "I'll make a deal with you."

John winced, "I can already tell I'm not going to like where this is going..."

"I'll pay twenty bucks every time I swear. You can pay five every time you do."

John shot Greg an offended glare, "And lo and behold -- now, why in the hell do you get to pay so damned much more?"

This time, Greg allowed himself a small, satisfied grin, "Because if _you_ had to pay twenty bucks every time you swear for however long, you'd bankrupt all of your accounts very soon."

"Ha ha ha," John muttered, but conceded that Greg had a point. "How long we doin' this for?"

Greg obviously hadn't given this any thought but, after a few moments, responded, "A week. I have bills to pay."

This time it was John who snorted, "Uh, yeah -- what's this about a subscription to _Girls Gone Wild_?" Greg's comically irritated expression at those words almost made admitting he and Blythe had overheard his argument with Dr. Cameron worth it.

"I'm going to kill Cameron. That's not a _magazine_, they're _videos_ and I don't actually have any!" Greg bit out, definitely flustered and John chuckled a little, tempted to make Greg explain himself but letting it go instead.

John then turned to fully face the window, seeing for the first time in hours, Robert's pale frame with layers of bandages sticking out from under his gown. He suddenly recalled the last time he'd seen Robert, that his hair had been longer and blond. It was closer to Greg's and Blythe's shade now. He didn't know how he'd missed it.

"Are either of you going to tell Dr. Cameron...anything?"

Greg expelled a breath, glancing downward in that bashful, uncertain way that John had always hated but wouldn't comment on again. It always looked so damned _foreign_ on Greg's face, though.

Like it had been scraped off someone else's and Greg was just a substitute for some idiot. "Me? _No_. If Chase wants to say anything, it's his business, not mine."

"It _is_ your business," John objected, leading to Greg shaking his head.

"No," he repeated sternly. "Chase is the one who's going to be affected by this, performance-wise. His affiliation with me is already routinely called into question by idiots here who we've proven wrong at whichever point -- _Stockholm Syndrome_ or whatever crap they can come up with for why he hasn't pissed on my doorstep. Imagine if someone decided to say that nepotism paved the way for him -- that's the _last_ thing that got him in my door, if you recall. His expertise is all his own and I didn't have anything to do with it. He worked smart _and_ hard and never begged or even asked me for anything -- and he won't ask anyone else for jackshit, either, so don't even go there."

Greg stopped short, then, and frowned, giving his head a slight shake before reaching to pull out his wallet and removing a twenty. He started to hand it to John, who smiled despite the seriousness of their conversation and pushed it away.

"I don't want your money, son."

Greg frowned and John felt a sudden urge to laugh at how familiar it was to their little disagreements when Greg had been a toddler and hadn't wanted to eat his peas. It gratified him to know that the little boy he remembered was still in there, plain to see.

"Then what the -- what _do_ you want?" Greg asked then, his words coming out in a bit of a rush, and John wondered how long he'd been holding the question in. "I mean, you were just as content as I was not to talk to one another after I finally vacated the premises and took my chaos elsewhere. This pattern of bearable tension and borderline loathing has lasted a good thirty years, so what the hell? Why do you suddenly care if I'm..."

John could feel his face falling, his eyes widening. He could see Greg's own eyes closing as he began to struggle to hold back how upset he really was.

_...So I breed thicker skin and let my lustrous coat fill in and I'll never admit that I..._

When Greg spoke again his voice shook very slightly, "What do you care if I'm really happy? You don't want to hear about my job or my life, not really. You don't want to know if I'm in pain because that would screw up your fantasy about my being...whatever the -- whatever I'm obviously not. And if I hadn't called you because I guess I thought Chase should meet at least _some_ living -- "

Greg caught himself and glanced around, a deep frown landing on his face before looking back at John again, all the old anger back, "_Some_ people who could manage not to abandon their families or drink themselves to death...then you wouldn't have called me and I wouldn't have called you and we'd've convinced ourselves we wanted it this way or something like that because -- hey, we're only getting in each other's way, probably, and -- "

John reached up and took firm hold of Greg's shoulders, turning him abruptly and shunting him into Robert's room, where a chair was next to the bed. John dumped Greg into the chair and forced him to face Robert's still-sedated form.

"What -- "

"We already know you and I are bullshitters, extraordinaire," John said quietly, carefully training Greg's head to face Robert. "But one thing I do know is that you're not gonna do that to 'im. Like you said, he deserves better than that. Maybe you and I aren't ever going to be comfortable, but you _are_ already comfortable with this one. He knows you, sees who you are, and if he took care of his mother, he's for damned sure not goin' to toss you to the wayside no matter how much you think you deserve it -- which you don't, mind you -- but he understands you and you understand him. For God's sake, Gregory, let that be enough. Let yourself be liked and loved, alright?"

John's hand fell away from Greg's chin and his face whipped back to stare at John's.

"He doesn't owe me anything," he murmured and John nodded, "Of course not. That's why you have to let him. There's nothin' to be afraid of."

A disbelieving laugh issued from Greg's mouth, seemingly before he could stop it.

"I really don't think that's true."

John sighed and walked over to retrieve the other chair, bringing it to rest beside Greg. "Well, I guess you'll just have to be convinced."

He then heard a quiet shuffling sound and looked down at the bed, a small smile coming to his face, "Well, well -- look who's decided to join the land of the living!"

Greg shot John a scowl, but John ignored it.

...Part One of Two, to be continued...


End file.
